Complete Works of Robert Louis Stevenson

by Robert Louis Stevenson

  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