Lie, pleased and panting, in a pool.
But what, my Dew, in idle mood,
What prate I, minding not my debt?
What do I talk of bad or good?
The best is still a cigarette.
Me whether evil fate assault,
Or smiling providences crown —
Whether on high the eternal vault
Be blue, or crash with thunder down —
I judge the best, whate’er befall,
Is still to sit on one’s behind,
And, having duly moistened all,
Smoke with an unperturbed mind.
Davos, November .
“The whole front of the house was lighted, and there were pipes and fiddles, and as much dancing and deray within as used to be in Sir Robert’s house at Pace and Yule, and such high seasons.” — See “Wandering Willie’s Tale” in “Redgauntlet,” borrowed perhaps from “Christ’s Kirk of the Green.”
In architecture, a series of piles to defend the pier of a bridge.
ALCAICS TO HORATIO F. BROWN
Brave lads in olden musical centuries,
Sang, night by night, adorable choruses,
Sat late by alehouse doors in April
Chaunting in joy as the moon was rising:
Moon-seen and merry, under the trellises,
Flush-faced they played with old polysyllables;
Spring scents inspired, old wine diluted;
Love and Apollo were there to chorus.
Now these, the songs, remain to eternity,
Those, only those, the bountiful choristers
Gone — those are gone, those unremembered
Sleep and are silent in earth for ever.
So man himself appears and evanishes,
So smiles and goes; as wanderers halting at
Some green-embowered house, play their music,
Play and are gone on the windy highway;
Yet dwells the strain enshrined in the memory
Long after they departed eternally,
Forth-faring tow’rd far mountain summits,
Cities of men on the sounding Ocean.
Youth sang the song in years immemorial;
Brave chanticleer, he sang and was beautiful;
Bird-haunted, green tree-tops in springtime
Heard and were pleased by the voice of singing;
Youth goes, and leaves behind him a prodigy —
Songs sent by thee afar from Venetian
Sea-grey lagunes, sea-paven highways,
Dear to me here in my Alpine exile.
Davos, Spring .
A LYTLE JAPE OF TUSHERIE
By A. Tusher
The pleasant river gushes
Among the meadows green;
At home the author tushes;
For him it flows unseen.
The Birds among the Bushes
May wanton on the spray;
But vain for him who tushes
The brightness of the day!
The frog among the rushes
Sits singing in the blue.
By ‘r la’kin! but these tushes
Are wearisome to do!
The task entirely crushes
The spirit of the bard:
God pity him who tushes —
His task is very hard.
The filthy gutter slushes,
The clouds are full of rain,
But doomed is he who tushes
To tush and tush again.
At morn with his hair-brushes,
Still “tush” he says and weeps;
At night again he tushes,
And tushes till he sleeps.
And when at length he pushes
Beyond the river dark —
‘Las, to the man who tushes,
“Tush” shall be God’s remark!
Hyères, May .
TO VIRGIL AND DORA WILLIAMS
Here, from the forelands of the tideless sea,
Behold and take my offering unadorned.
In the Pacific air it sprang; it grew
Among the silence of the Alpine air;
In Scottish heather blossomed; and at last
By that unshapen sapphire, in whose face
Spain, Italy, France, Algiers, and Tunis view
Their introverted mountains, came to fruit.
Back now, my Booklet! on the diving ship,
And posting on the rails, to home return, —
Home, and the friends whose honouring name you bear.
Hyères, .
BURLESQUE SONNET
TO ÆNEAS WILLIAM MACKINTOSH
Thee, Mackintosh, artificer of light,
Thee, the lone smoker hails! the student, thee;
Thee, oft upon the ungovernable sea,
The seaman, conscious of approaching night;
Thou, with industrious fingers, hast outright
Mastered that art, of other arts the key,
That bids thick night before the morning flee,
And lingering day retains for mortal sight.
O Promethean workman, thee I hail,
Thee hallowed, thee unparalleled, thee bold
To affront the reign of sleep and darkness old,
Thee William, thee Æneas, thee I sing;
Thee by the glimmering taper clear and pale,
Of light, and light’s purveyance, hail, the king.
THE FINE PACIFIC ISLANDS
(HEARD IN A PUBLIC-HOUSE AT ROTHERHITHE)
The jolly English Yellowboy
Is a ‘ansome coin when new,
The Yankee Double-eagle
Is large enough for two.
O, these may do for seaport towns,
For cities these may do;
But the dibbs that takes the Hislands
Are the dollars of Peru:
O, the fine Pacific Hislands,
O, the dollars of Peru!
It’s there we buy the cocoanuts
Mast ‘eaded in the blue;
It’s there we trap the lasses
All waiting for the crew;
It’s there we buy the trader’s rum
What bores a seaman through....
In the fine Pacific Hislands
With the dollars of Peru:
In the fine Pacific Hislands
With the dollars of Peru!
Now, messmates, when my watch is up,
And I am quite broached to,
I’ll give a tip to ‘Evving
Of the ‘ansome thing to do:
Let ’em just refit this sailor-man
And launch him off anew
To cruise among the Hislands
With the dollars of Peru:
In the fine Pacific Hislands
With the dollars of Peru!
Tahiti, August .
AULD REEKIE
When chitterin’ cauld the day sall daw,
Loud may your bonny bugles blaw
And loud your drums may beat.
Hie owre the land at evenfa’
Your lamps may glitter raw by raw,
Along the gowsty street.
I gang nae mair where ance I gaed,
By Brunston, Fairmileheid, or Braid;
But far frae Kirk and Tron.
O still ayont the muckle sea,
Still are ye dear, and dear to me,
Auld Reekie, still and on!
THE LESSON OF THE MASTER
TO HENRY JAMES
Adela, Adela, Adela Chart,
What have you done to my elderly heart?
Of all the ladies of paper and ink
I count you the paragon, call you the pink.
The word of your brother depicts you in part:
“You raving maniac!” Adela Chart;
But in all the asylums that cumber the ground,
So delightful a maniac was ne’er to be found.
I pore on you, dote on you, clasp you to heart,
I laud, love, and laugh at you, Adela Chart,
; And thank my dear maker the while I admire
That I can be neither your husband nor sire.
Your husband’s, your sire’s, were a difficult part;
You’re a byway to suicide, Adela Chart;
But to read of, depicted by exquisite James,
O, sure you’re the flower and quintessence of dames.
Vailima, October .
THE CONSECRATION OF BRAILLE
TO MRS. A. BAKER
I was a barren tree before,
I blew a quenchèd coal,
I could not, on their midnight shore,
The lonely blind console.
A moment, lend your hand, I bring
My sheaf for you to bind,
And you can teach my words to sing
In the darkness of the blind.
Vailima, December .
SONG
Light foot and tight foot,
And green grass spread,
Early in the morning,
But hope is on ahead.
Brief day and bright day,
And sunset red,
Early in the evening,
The stars are overhead.
THE LIGHT-KEEPER
I
The brilliant kernel of the night,
The flaming lightroom circles me:
I sit within a blaze of light
Held high above the dusky sea.
Far off the surf doth break and roar
Along bleak miles of moonlit shore,
Where through the tides the tumbling wave
Falls in an avalanche of foam
And drives its churnèd waters home
Up many an undercliff and cave.
The clear bell chimes: the clockworks strain:
The turning lenses flash and pass,
Frame turning within glittering frame
With frosty gleam of moving glass:
Unseen by me, each dusky hour
The sea-waves welter up the tower
Or in the ebb subside again;
And ever and anon all night,
Drawn from afar by charm of light,
A sea-bird beats against the pane.
And lastly when dawn ends the night
And belts the semi-orb of sea,
The tall, pale pharos in the light
Looks white and spectral as may be.
The early ebb is out: the green
Straight belt of sea-weed now is seen,
That round the basement of the tower
Marks out the interspace of tide;
And watching men are heavy-eyed,
And sleepless lips are dry and sour.
The night is over like a dream:
The sea-birds cry and dip themselves;
And in the early sunlight, steam
The newly-bared and dripping shelves,
Around whose verge the glassy wave
With lisping wash is heard to lave;
While, on the white tower lifted high,
With yellow light in faded glass
The circling lenses flash and pass,
And sickly shine against the sky.
1869.
II
As the steady lenses circle
With a frosty gleam of glass;
And the clear bell chimes,
And the oil brims over the lip of the burner,
Quiet and still at his desk,
The lonely light-keeper
Holds his vigil.
Lured from afar,
The bewildered sea-gull beats
Dully against the lantern;
Yet he stirs not, lifts not his head
From the desk where he reads,
Lifts not his eyes to see
The chill blind circle of night
Watching him through the panes.
This is his country’s guardian,
The outmost sentry of peace.
This is the man,
Who gives up all that is lovely in living
For the means to live.
Poetry cunningly gilds
The life of the Light-Keeper,
Held on high in the blackness
In the burning kernel of night.
The seaman sees and blesses him;
The Poet, deep in a sonnet,
Numbers his inky fingers
Fitly to praise him:
Only we behold him,
Sitting, patient and stolid,
Martyr to a salary.
1870.
NEW POEMS AND VARIANT READINGS
All Stevensonians owe a debt of gratitude to the Bibliophile Society of Boston for having discovered the following poems and given them light in a privately printed edition, thus making them known, in fact, to the world at large. Otherwise they would have remained scattered and hidden indefinitely in the hands of various collectors. They will be found extraordinarily interesting in their self-revelation, and some, indeed, are so intimate and personal that one understands why Stevenson withheld them from all eyes save his own. The love-poems in particular, though they are of very unequal merit, possess in common a really affecting sincerity. That Stevenson should have preserved these poems through all the vicissitudes of his wandering life shows how dearly he must have valued them; and shows, too, I think, beyond any contradiction, that he meant they should be ultimately published.
LLOYD OSBOURNE.
CONTENTS
PRAYER
LO! IN THINE HONEST EYES I READ
THOUGH DEEP INDIFFERENCE SHOULD DROWSE
MY HEART, WHEN FIRST THE BLACK-BIRD SINGS
I DREAMED OF FOREST ALLEYS FAIR
IV.
ST. MARTIN’S SUMMER
DEDICATION
THE OLD CHIMÆRAS, OLD RECEIPTS
PRELUDE
THE VANQUISHED KNIGHT
TO THE COMMISSIONERS OF NORTHERN LIGHTS
THE RELIC TAKEN, WHAT AVAILS THE SHRINE?
ABOUT THE SHELTERED GARDEN GROUND
AFTER READING “ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA”
I KNOW NOT HOW, BUT AS I COUNT
SPRING SONG
THE SUMMER SUN SHONE ROUND ME
YOU LOOKED SO TEMPTING IN THE PEW
LOVE’S VICISSITUDES
DUDDINGSTONE
STOUT MARCHES LEAD TO CERTAIN ENDS
AWAY WITH FUNERAL MUSIC
TO SYDNEY
HAD I THE POWER THAT HAVE THE WILL
O DULL COLD NORTHERN SKY
APOLOGETIC POSTSCRIPT OF A YEAR LATER
TO MARCUS
TO OTTILIE
THIS GLOOMY NORTHERN DAY
THE WIND IS WITHOUT THERE AND HOWLS IN THE TREES
A VALENTINE’S SONG
HAIL! CHILDISH SLAVES OF SOCIAL RULES
SWALLOWS TRAVEL TO AND FRO
TO MESDAMES ZASSETSKY AND GARSCHINE
TO MADAME GARSCHINE
MUSIC AT THE VILLA MARINA
FEAR NOT, DEAR FRIEND, BUT FREELY LIVE YOUR DAYS
LET LOVE GO, IF GO SHE WILL
I DO NOT FEAR TO OWN ME KIN
I AM LIKE ONE THAT FOR LONG DAYS HAD SATE
VOLUNTARY
ON NOW, ALTHOUGH THE YEAR BE DONE
IN THE GREEN AND GALLANT SPRING
DEATH, TO THE DEAD FOR EVERMORE
TO CHARLES BAXTER
I WHO ALL THE WINTER THROUGH
LOVE, WHAT IS LOVE?
SOON OUR FRIENDS PERISH
AS ONE WHO HAVING WANDERED ALL NIGHT LONG
STRANGE ARE THE WAYS OF MEN
THE WIND BLEW SHRILL AND SMART
MAN SAILS THE DEEP AWHILE
THE COCK’S CLEAR VOICE INTO THE CLEARER AIR
NOW WHEN THE NUMBER OF MY YEARS
WHAT MAN MAY LEARN, WHAT MAN MAY DO
SMALL IS THE TRUST WHEN LOVE IS GREEN
KNOW YOU THE RIVER NEAR TO GREZ
IT’S FORTH ACROSS THE ROARING FOAM
AN ENGLISH BREEZE
AS IN THEIR FLIGHT THE BIRDS OF SONG
THE PIPER
TO M
RS. MACMARLAND
TO MISS CORNISH
TALES OF ARABIA
BEHOLD, AS GOBLINS DARK OF MIEN
STILL I LOVE TO RHYME
LONG TIME I LAY IN LITTLE EASE
FLOWER GOD, GOD OF THE SPRING
COME, MY BELOVED, HEAR FROM ME
SINCE YEARS AGO FOR EVERMORE
ENVOY FOR “A CHILD’S GARDEN OF VERSES”
FOR RICHMOND’S GARDEN WALL
HAIL, GUEST, AND ENTER FREELY!
LO, NOW, MY GUEST
SO LIVE, SO LOVE, SO USE THAT FRAGILE HOUR
AD SE IPSUM
BEFORE THIS LITTLE GIFT WAS COME
GO, LITTLE BOOK — THE ANCIENT PHRASE
MY LOVE WAS WARM
DEDICATORY POEM FOR “UNDERWOODS”
FAREWELL
THE FAR-FARERS
COME, MY LITTLE CHILDREN, HERE ARE SONGS FOR YOU
HOME FROM THE DAISIED MEADOWS
EARLY IN THE MORNING I HEAR ON YOUR PIANO
FAIR ISLE AT SEA
LOUD AND LOW IN THE CHIMNEY
I LOVE TO BE WARM BY THE RED FIRESIDE
AT LAST SHE COMES
MINE EYES WERE SWIFT TO KNOW THEE
FIXED IS THE DOOM
MEN ARE HEAVEN’S PIERS
THE ANGLER ROSE, HE TOOK HIS ROD
SPRING CAROL
TO WHAT SHALL I COMPARE HER?
WHEN THE SUN COMES AFTER RAIN
LATE, O MILLER
TO FRIENDS AT HOME
I, WHOM APOLLO SOMETIME VISITED
TEMPEST TOSSED AND SORE AFFLICTED
VARIANT FORM OF THE PRECEDING POEM
I NOW, O FRIEND, WHOM NOISELESSLY THE SNOWS
SINCE THOU HAST GIVEN ME THIS GOOD HOPE, O GOD
GOD GAVE TO ME A CHILD IN PART
OVER THE LAND IS APRIL
LIGHT AS THE LINNET ON MY WAY I START
COME, HERE IS ADIEU TO THE CITY
IT BLOWS A SNOWING GALE
NE SIT ANCILLÆ TIBI AMOR PUDOR
TO ALL THAT LOVE THE FAR AND BLUE
THOU STRAINEST THROUGH THE MOUNTAIN FERN
TO ROSABELLE
NOW BARE TO THE BEHOLDER’S EYE
THE BOUR-TREE DEN
SONNETS
AIR OF DIABELLI’S
EPITAPHIUM EROTII
DE M. ANTONIO
AD MAGISTRUM LUDI
AD NEPOTEM
IN CHARIDEMUM
DE LIGURRA
IN LUPUM
AD QUINTILIANUM
DE HORTIS JULII MARTIALIS
AD MARTIALEM
IN MAXIMUM
AD OLUM
DE CŒNATIONE MICÆ
DE EROTIO PUELLA
AD PISCATOREM
Complete Works of Robert Louis Stevenson Page 433