Complete Works of Robert Louis Stevenson

by Robert Louis Stevenson

  I note again, that among our new dialecticians, the local habitat of every dialect is given to the square mile. I could not emulate this nicety if I desired; for I simply wrote my Scots as well as I was able, not caring if it hailed from Lauderdale or Angus, from the Mearns or Galloway; if I had ever heard a good word, I used it without shame; and when Scots was lacking, or the rhyme jibbed, I was glad (like my betters) to fall back on English. For all that, I own to a friendly feeling for the tongue of Fergusson and of Sir Walter, both Edinburgh men; and I confess that Burns has always sounded in my ear like something partly foreign. And indeed I am from the Lothians myself; it is there I heard the language spoken about my childhood; and it is in the drawling Lothian voice that I repeat it to myself. Let the precisians call my speech that of the Lothians. And if it be not pure, alas! what matters it? The day draws near when this illustrious and malleable tongue shall be quite forgotten; and Burn’s Ayrshire, and Dr. Macdonald’s Aberdeen-awa’, and Scott’s brave, metropolitan utterance will be all equally the ghosts of speech. Till then I would love to have my hour as a native Maker, and be read by my own countryfolk in our own dying language: an ambition surely rather of the heart than of the head, so restricted as it is in prospect of endurance, so parochial in bounds of space.

  BOOK I. In English

  ENVOY

  Go, little book, and wish to all

  Flowers in the garden, meat in the hall,

  A bin of wine, a spice of wit,

  A house with lawns enclosing it,

  A living river by the door,

  A nightingale in the sycamore!

  A SONG OF THE ROAD

  The gauger walked with willing foot,

  And aye the gauger played the flute;

  And what should Master Gauger play

  But Over the hills and far away?

  Whene’er I buckle on my pack

  And foot it gaily in the track,

  O pleasant gauger, long since dead,

  I hear you fluting on ahead.

  You go with me the self-same way —

  The self-same air for me you play;

  For I do think and so do you

  It is the tune to travel to.

  For who would gravely set his face

  To go to this or t’other place?

  There’s nothing under Heav’n so blue

  That’s fairly worth the travelling to.

  On every hand the roads begin,

  And people walk with zeal therein;

  But wheresoe’er the highways tend,

  Be sure there’s nothing at the end.

  Then follow you, wherever hie

  The travelling mountains of the sky.

  Or let the streams in civil mode

  Direct your choice upon a road;

  For one and all, or high or low,

  Will lead you where you wish to go;

  And one and all go night and day

  Over the hills and far away!

  Forest of Montargis, 1878.

  THE CANOE SPEAKS

  On the great streams the ships may go

  About men’s business to and fro.

  But I, the egg-shell pinnace, sleep

  On crystal waters ankle-deep:

  I, whose diminutive design,

  Of sweeter cedar, pithier pine,

  Is fashioned on so frail a mould,

  A hand may launch, a hand withhold:

  I, rather, with the leaping trout

  Wind, among lilies, in and out;

  I, the unnamed, inviolate,

  Green, rustic rivers, navigate;

  My dipping paddle scarcely shakes

  The berry in the bramble-brakes;

  Still forth on my green way I wend

  Beside the cottage garden-end;

  And by the nested angler fare,

  And take the lovers unaware.

  By willow wood and water-wheel

  Speedily fleets my touching keel;

  By all retired and shady spots

  Where prosper dim forget-me-nots;

  By meadows where at afternoon

  The growing maidens troop in June

  To loose their girdles on the grass.

  Ah! speedier than before the glass

  The backward toilet goes; and swift

  As swallows quiver, robe and shift

  And the rough country stockings lie

  Around each young divinity.

  When, following the recondite brook,

  Sudden upon this scene I look,

  And light with unfamiliar face

  On chaste Diana’s bathing-place,

  Loud ring the hills about and all

  The shallows are abandoned. . . .

  IV

  It is the season now to go

  About the country high and low,

  Among the lilacs hand in hand,

  And two by two in fairy land.

  The brooding boy, the sighing maid,

  Wholly fain and half afraid,

  Now meet along the hazel’d brook

  To pass and linger, pause and look.

  A year ago, and blithely paired,

  Their rough-and-tumble play they shared;

  They kissed and quarrelled, laughed and cried,

  A year ago at Eastertide.

  With bursting heart, with fiery face,

  She strove against him in the race;

  He unabashed her garter saw,

  That now would touch her skirts with awe.

  Now by the stile ablaze she stops,

  And his demurer eyes he drops;

  Now they exchange averted sighs

  Or stand and marry silent eyes.

  And he to her a hero is

  And sweeter she than primroses;

  Their common silence dearer far

  Than nightingale and mavis are.

  Now when they sever wedded hands,

  Joy trembles in their bosom-strands

  And lovely laughter leaps and falls

  Upon their lips in madrigals.

  THE HOUSE BEAUTIFUL

  A naked house, a naked moor,

  A shivering pool before the door,

  A garden bare of flowers and fruit

  And poplars at the garden foot:

  Such is the place that I live in,

  Bleak without and bare within.

  Yet shall your ragged moor receive

  The incomparable pomp of eve,

  And the cold glories of the dawn

  Behind your shivering trees be drawn;

  And when the wind from place to place

  Doth the unmoored cloud-galleons chase,

  Your garden gloom and gleam again,

  With leaping sun, with glancing rain.

  Here shall the wizard moon ascend

  The heavens, in the crimson end

  Of day’s declining splendour; here

  The army of the stars appear.

  The neighbour hollows dry or wet,

  Spring shall with tender flowers beset;

  And oft the morning muser see

  Larks rising from the broomy lea,

  And every fairy wheel and thread

  Of cobweb dew-bediamonded.

  When daisies go, shall winter time

  Silver the simple grass with rime;

  Autumnal frosts enchant the pool

  And make the cart-ruts beautiful;

  And when snow-bright the moor expands,

  How shall your children clap their hands!

  To make this earth our hermitage,

  A cheerful and a changeful page,

  God’s bright and intricate device

  Of days and seasons doth suffice.

  A VISIT FROM THE SEA

  Far from the loud sea beaches

  Where he goes fishing and crying,

  Here in the inland garden

  Why is the sea-gull flying?

  Here are no fish to dive for;

  Here is the corn and lea;

  Here are the green trees rus
tling.

  Hie away home to sea!

  Fresh is the river water

  And quiet among the rushes;

  This is no home for the sea-gull

  But for the rooks and thrushes.

  Pity the bird that has wandered!

  Pity the sailor ashore!

  Hurry him home to the ocean,

  Let him come here no more!

  High on the sea-cliff ledges

  The white gulls are trooping and crying,

  Here among the rooks and roses,

  Why is the sea-gull flying?

  TO A GARDENER

  Friend, in my mountain-side demesne

  My plain-beholding, rosy, green

  And linnet-haunted garden-ground,

  Let still the esculents abound.

  Let first the onion flourish there,

  Rose among roots, the maiden-fair,

  Wine-scented and poetic soul

  Of the capacious salad bowl.

  Let thyme the mountaineer (to dress

  The tinier birds) and wading cress,

  The lover of the shallow brook,

  From all my plots and borders look.

  Nor crisp and ruddy radish, nor

  Pease-cods for the child’s pinafore

  Be lacking; nor of salad clan

  The last and least that ever ran

  About great nature’s garden-beds.

  Nor thence be missed the speary heads

  Of artichoke; nor thence the bean

  That gathered innocent and green

  Outsavours the belauded pea.

  These tend, I prithee; and for me,

  Thy most long-suffering master, bring

  In April, when the linnets sing

  And the days lengthen more and more

  At sundown to the garden door.

  And I, being provided thus.

  Shall, with superb asparagus,

  A book, a taper, and a cup

  Of country wine, divinely sup.

  La Solitude, Hyères.

  TO MINNIE

  (With a hand-glass)

  A picture-frame for you to fill,

  A paltry setting for your face,

  A thing that has no worth until

  You lend it something of your grace

  I send (unhappy I that sing

  Laid by awhile upon the shelf)

  Because I would not send a thing

  Less charming than you are yourself.

  And happier than I, alas!

  (Dumb thing, I envy its delight)

  ‘Twill wish you well, the looking-glass,

  And look you in the face to-night.

  1869.

  TO K. DE M.

  A lover of the moorland bare

  And honest country winds, you were;

  The silver-skimming rain you took;

  And loved the floodings of the brook,

  Dew, frost and mountains, fire and seas,

  Tumultuary silences,

  Winds that in darkness fifed a tune,

  And the high-riding, virgin moon.

  And as the berry, pale and sharp,

  Springs on some ditch’s counterscarp

  In our ungenial, native north —

  You put your frosted wildings forth,

  And on the heath, afar from man,

  A strong and bitter virgin ran.

  The berry ripened keeps the rude

  And racy flavour of the wood.

  And you that loved the empty plain

  All redolent of wind and rain,

  Around you still the curlew sings —

  The freshness of the weather clings —

  The maiden jewels of the rain

  Sit in your dabbled locks again.

  TO N. V. DE G. S.

  The unfathomable sea, and time, and tears,

  The deeds of heroes and the crimes of kings

  Dispart us; and the river of events

  Has, for an age of years, to east and west

  More widely borne our cradles. Thou to me

  Art foreign, as when seamen at the dawn

  Descry a land far off and know not which.

  So I approach uncertain; so I cruise

  Round thy mysterious islet, and behold

  Surf and great mountains and loud river-bars,

  And from the shore hear inland voices call.

  Strange is the seaman’s heart; he hopes, he fears;

  Draws closer and sweeps wider from that coast;

  Last, his rent sail refits, and to the deep

  His shattered prow uncomforted puts back.

  Yet as he goes he ponders at the helm

  Of that bright island; where he feared to touch,

  His spirit readventures; and for years,

  Where by his wife he slumbers safe at home,

  Thoughts of that land revisit him; he sees

  The eternal mountains beckon, and awakes

  Yearning for that far home that might have been.

  TO WILL. H. LOW

  Youth now flees on feathered foot

  Faint and fainter sounds the flute,

  Rarer songs of gods; and still

  Somewhere on the sunny hill,

  Or along the winding stream,

  Through the willows, flits a dream;

  Flits but shows a smiling face,

  Flees but with so quaint a grace,

  None can choose to stay at home,

  All must follow, all must roam.

  This is unborn beauty: she

  Now in air floats high and free,

  Takes the sun and breaks the blue; —

  Late with stooping pinion flew

  Raking hedgerow trees, and wet

  Her wing in silver streams, and set

  Shining foot on temple roof:

  Now again she flies aloof,

  Coasting mountain clouds and kiss’t

  By the evening’s amethyst.

  In wet wood and miry lane,

  Still we pant and pound in vain;

  Still with leaden foot we chase

  Waning pinion, fainting face;

  Still with gray hair we stumble on,

  Till, behold, the vision gone!

  Where hath fleeting beauty led?

  To the doorway of the dead.

  Life is over, life was gay:

  We have come the primrose way.

  TO MRS. WILL. H. LOW

  Even in the bluest noonday of July,

  There could not run the smallest breath of wind

  But all the quarter sounded like a wood;

  And in the chequered silence and above

  The hum of city cabs that sought the Bois,

  Suburban ashes shivered into song.

  A patter and a chatter and a chirp

  And a long dying hiss — it was as though

  Starched old brocaded dames through all the house

  Had trailed a strident skirt, or the whole sky

  Even in a wink had over-brimmed in rain.

  Hark, in these shady parlours, how it talks

  Of the near Autumn, how the smitten ash

  Trembles and augurs floods! O not too long

  In these inconstant latitudes delay,

  O not too late from the unbeloved north

  Trim your escape! For soon shall this low roof

  Resound indeed with rain, soon shall your eyes

  Search the foul garden, search the darkened rooms,

  Nor find one jewel but the blazing log.

  12 Rue Vernier, Paris.

  TO H. F. BROWN

  (Written during a dangerous sickness.)

  I sit and wait a pair of oars

  On cis-Elysian river-shores.

  Where the immortal dead have sate,

  ’Tis mine to sit and meditate;

  To re-ascend life’s rivulet,

  Without remorse, without regret;

  And sing my Alma Genetrix

  Among the willows of the Styx.

  And lo, as my serener soul


  Did these unhappy shores patrol,

  And wait with an attentive ear

  The coming of the gondolier,

  Your fire-surviving roll I took,

  Your spirited and happy book;

  Whereon, despite my frowning fate,

  It did my soul so recreate

  That all my fancies fled away

  On a Venetian holiday.

  Now, thanks to your triumphant care,

  Your pages clear as April air,

  The sails, the bells, the birds, I know,

  And the far-off Friulan snow;

  The land and sea, the sun and shade,

  And the blue even lamp-inlaid.

  For this, for these, for all, O friend,

  For your whole book from end to end —

  For Paron Piero’s muttonham —

  I your defaulting debtor am.

  Perchance, reviving, yet may I

  To your sea-paven city hie,

  And in a felze, some day yet

  Light at your pipe my cigarette.

  TO ANDREW LANG

  Dear Andrew, with the brindled hair,

  Who glory to have thrown in air,

  High over arm, the trembling reed,

  By Ale and Kail, by Till and Tweed:

  An equal craft of hand you show

  The pen to guide, the fly to throw:

  I count you happy starred; for God,

  When He with inkpot and with rod

  Endowed you, bade your fortune lead

  Forever by the crooks of Tweed,

  Forever by the woods of song

  And lands that to the Muse belong;

  Or if in peopled streets, or in

  The abhorred pedantic sanhedrim,

  It should be yours to wander, still

  Airs of the morn, airs of the hill,

  The plovery Forest and the seas

  That break about the Hebrides,

  Should follow over field and plain