Complete Works of Robert Louis Stevenson

by Robert Louis Stevenson

  And it’s drain a health to death before we go!

  To death, my lads, we sail;

  And it’s death that blows the gale

  And death that holds the tiller as we ride.

  For he’s the king of all

  In the tempest and the squall,

  And the ruler of the Ocean wild and wide!

  MAN SAILS THE DEEP AWHILE

  Man sails the deep awhile;

  Loud runs the roaring tide;

  The seas are wild and wide;

  O’er many a salt, o’er many a desert mile,

  The unchained breakers ride,

  The quivering stars beguile.

  Hope bears the sole command;

  Hope, with unshaken eyes,

  Sees flaw and storm arise;

  Hope, the good steersman, with unwearying hand,

  Steers, under changing skies,

  Unchanged toward the land.

  O wind that bravely blows!

  O hope that sails with all

  Where stars and voices call!

  O ship undaunted that forever goes

  Where God, her admiral,

  His battle signal shows!

  What though the seas and wind

  Far on the deep should whelm

  Colours and sails and helm?

  There, too, you touch that port that you designed —

  There, in the mid-seas’ realm,

  Shall you that haven find.

  Well hast thou sailed: now die,

  To die is not to sleep.

  Still your true course you keep,

  O sailor soul, still sailing for the sky;

  And fifty fathom deep

  Your colours still shall fly.

  THE COCK’S CLEAR VOICE INTO THE CLEARER AIR

  The cock’s clear voice into the clearer air

  Where westward far I roam,

  Mounts with a thrill of hope,

  Falls with a sigh of home.

  A rural sentry, he from farm and field

  The coming morn descries,

  And, mankind’s bugler, wakes

  The camp of enterprise.

  He sings the morn upon the westward hills

  Strange and remote and wild;

  He sings it in the land

  Where once I was a child.

  He brings to me dear voices of the past,

  The old land and the years:

  My father calls for me,

  My weeping spirit hears.

  Fife, fife, into the golden air, O bird,

  And sing the morning in;

  For the old days are past

  And new days begin.

  NOW WHEN THE NUMBER OF MY YEARS

  Now when the number of my years

  Is all fulfilled, and I

  From sedentary life

  Shall rouse me up to die,

  Bury me low and let me lie

  Under the wide and starry sky.

  Joying to live, I joyed to die,

  Bury me low and let me lie.

  Clear was my soul, my deeds were free,

  Honour was called my name,

  I fell not back from fear

  Nor followed after fame.

  Bury me low and let me lie

  Under the wide and starry sky.

  Joying to live, I joyed to die,

  Bury me low and let me lie.

  Bury me low in valleys green

  And where the milder breeze

  Blows fresh along the stream,

  Sings roundly in the trees —

  Bury me low and let me lie

  Under the wide and starry sky.

  Joying to live, I joyed to die,

  Bury me low and let me lie.

  WHAT MAN MAY LEARN, WHAT MAN MAY DO

  What man may learn, what man may do,

  Of right or wrong of false or true,

  While, skipper-like, his course he steers

  Through nine and twenty mingled years,

  Half misconceived and half forgot,

  So much I know and practise not.

  Old are the words of wisdom, old

  The counsels of the wise and bold:

  To close the ears, to check the tongue,

  To keep the pining spirit young;

  To act the right, to say the true,

  And to be kind whate’er you do.

  Thus we across the modern stage

  Follow the wise of every age;

  And, as oaks grow and rivers run

  Unchanged in the unchanging sun,

  So the eternal march of man

  Goes forth on an eternal plan.

  SMALL IS THE TRUST WHEN LOVE IS GREEN

  Small is the trust when love is green

  In sap of early years;

  A little thing steps in between

  And kisses turn to tears.

  Awhile — and see how love be grown

  In loveliness and power!

  Awhile, it loves the sweets alone,

  But next it loves the sour.

  A little love is none at all

  That wanders or that fears;

  A hearty love dwells still at call

  To kisses or to tears.

  Such then be mine, my love to give,

  And such be yours to take: —

  A faith to hold, a life to live,

  For lovingkindness’ sake:

  Should you be sad, should you be gay,

  Or should you prove unkind,

  A love to hold the growing way

  And keep the helping mind: —

  A love to turn the laugh on care

  When wrinkled care appears,

  And, with an equal will, to share

  Your losses and your tears.

  KNOW YOU THE RIVER NEAR TO GREZ

  Know you the river near to Grez,

  A river deep and clear?

  Among the lilies all the way,

  That ancient river runs to-day

  From snowy weir to weir.

  Old as the Rhine of great renown,

  She hurries clear and fast,

  She runs amain by field and town

  From south to north, from up to down,

  To present on from past.

  The love I hold was borne by her;

  And now, though far away,

  My lonely spirit hears the stir

  Of water round the starling spur

  Beside the bridge at Grez.

  So may that love forever hold

  In life an equal pace;

  So may that love grow never old,

  But, clear and pure and fountain-cold,

  Go on from grace to grace.

  IT’S FORTH ACROSS THE ROARING FOAM

  It’s forth across the roaring foam, and on towards the west,

  It’s many a lonely league from home, o’er many a mountain crest,

  From where the dogs of Scotland call the sheep around the fold,

  To where the flags are flying beside the Gates of Gold.

  Where all the deep-sea galleons ride that come to bring the corn,

  Where falls the fog at eventide and blows the breeze at morn;

  It’s there that I was sick and sad, alone and poor and cold,

  In yon distressful city beside the Gates of Gold.

  I slept as one that nothing knows; but far along my way,

  Before the morning God rose and planned the coming day;

  Afar before me forth he went, as through the sands of old,

  And chose the friends to help me beside the Gates of Gold.

  I have been near, I have been far, my back’s been at the wall,

  Yet aye and ever shone the star to guide me through it all:

  The love of God, the help of man, they both shall make me bold

  Against the gates of darkness as beside the Gates of Gold.

  AN ENGLISH BREEZE

  Up with the sun, the breeze arose,

  Across the talking corn she goes,

  And smooth she rustles far
and wide

  Through all the voiceful countryside.

  Through all the land her tale she tells;

  She spins, she tosses, she compels

  The kites, the clouds, the windmill sails

  And all the trees in all the dales.

  God calls us, and the day prepares

  With nimble, gay and gracious airs:

  And from Penzance to Maidenhead

  The roads last night He watered.

  God calls us from inglorious ease,

  Forth and to travel with the breeze

  While, swift and singing, smooth and strong

  She gallops by the fields along.

  AS IN THEIR FLIGHT THE BIRDS OF SONG

  As in their flight the birds of song

  Halt here and there in sweet and sunny dales,

  But halt not overlong;

  The time one rural song to sing

  They pause; then following bounteous gales

  Steer forward on the wing:

  Sun-servers they, from first to last,

  Upon the sun they wait

  To ride the sailing blast.

  So he awhile in our contested state,

  Awhile abode, not longer, for his Sun —

  Mother we say, no tenderer name we know —

  With whose diviner glow

  His early days had shone,

  Now to withdraw her radiance had begun.

  Or lest a wrong I say, not she withdrew,

  But the loud stream of men day after day

  And great dust columns of the common way

  Between them grew and grew:

  And he and she for evermore might yearn,

  But to the spring the rivulets not return

  Nor to the bosom comes the child again.

  And he (O may we fancy so!),

  He, feeling time forever flow

  And flowing bear him forth and far away

  From that dear ingle where his life began

  And all his treasure lay —

  He, waxing into man,

  And ever farther, ever closer wound

  In this obstreperous world’s ignoble round,

  From that poor prospect turned his face away.

  THE PIPER

  Again I hear you piping, for I know the tune so well, —

  You rouse the heart to wander and be free,

  Tho’ where you learned your music, not the God of song can tell,

  For you pipe the open highway and the sea.

  O piper, lightly footing, lightly piping on your way,

  Tho’ your music thrills and pierces far and near,

  I tell you you had better pipe to someone else to-day,

  For you cannot pipe my fancy from my dear.

  You sound the note of travel through the hamlet and the town;

  You would lure the holy angels from on high;

  And not a man can hear you, but he throws the hammer down

  And is off to see the countries ere he die.

  But now no more I wander, now unchanging here I stay;

  By my love, you find me safely sitting here:

  And pipe you ne’er so sweetly, till you pipe the hills away,

  You can never pipe my fancy from my dear.

  TO MRS. MACMARLAND

  In Schnee der Alpen — so it runs

  To those divine accords — and here

  We dwell in Alpine snows and suns,

  A motley crew, for half the year:

  A motley crew, we dwell to taste —

  A shivering band in hope and fear —

  That sun upon the snowy waste,

  That Alpine ether cold and clear.

  Up from the laboured plains, and up

  From low sea-levels, we arise

  To drink of that diviner cup

  The rarer air, the clearer skies;

  For, as the great, old, godly King

  From mankind’s turbid valley cries,

  So all we mountain-lovers sing:

  I to the hills will lift mine eyes.

  The bells that ring, the peaks that climb,

  The frozen snow’s unbroken curd

  Might yet revindicate in rhyme

  The pauseless stream, the absent bird.

  In vain — for to the deeps of life

  You, lady, you my heart have stirred;

  And since you say you love my life,

  Be sure I love you for the word.

  Of kindness, here I nothing say —

  Such loveless kindnesses there are

  In that grimacing, common way,

  That old, unhonoured social war.

  Love but my dog and love my love,

  Adore with me a common star —

  I value not the rest above

  The ashes of a bad cigar.

  TO MISS CORNISH

  They tell me, lady, that to-day

  On that unknown Australian strand —

  Some time ago, so far away —

  Another lady joined the band.

  She joined the company of those

  Lovelily dowered, nobly planned,

  Who, smiling, still forgive their foes

  And keep their friends in close command.

  She, lady, as I learn, was one

  Among the many rarely good;

  And destined still to be a sun

  Through every dark and rainy mood: —

  She, as they told me, far had come,

  By sea and land, o’er many a rood: —

  Admired by all, beloved by some,

  She was yourself, I understood.

  But, compliment apart and free

  From all constraint of verses, may

  Goodness and honour, grace and glee,

  Attend you ever on your way —

  Up to the measure of your will,

  Beyond all power of mine to say —

  As she and I desire you still,

  Miss Cornish, on your natal day.

  TALES OF ARABIA

  Yes, friend, I own these tales of Arabia

  Smile not, as smiled their flawless originals,

  Age-old but yet untamed, for ages

  Pass and the magic is undiminished.

  Thus, friend, the tales of the old Camaralzaman,

  Ayoub, the Slave of Love, or the Calendars,

  Blind-eyed and ill-starred royal scions,

  Charm us in age as they charmed in childhood.

  Fair ones, beyond all numerability,

  Beam from the palace, beam on humanity,

  Bright-eyed, in truth, yet soul-less houris

  Offering pleasure and only pleasure.

  Thus they, the venal Muses Arabian,

  Unlike, indeed, the nobler divinities,

  Greek Gods or old time-honoured muses,

  Easily proffer unloved caresses.

  Lost, lost, the man who mindeth the minstrelsy;

  Since still, in sandy, glittering pleasances,

  Cold, stony fruits, gem-like but quite in-

  Edible, flatter and wholly starve him.

  BEHOLD, AS GOBLINS DARK OF MIEN

  Behold, as goblins dark of mien

  And portly tyrants dyed with crime

  Change, in the transformation scene,

  At Christmas, in the pantomime,

  Instanter, at the prompter’s cough,

  The fairy bonnets them, and they

  Throw their abhorred carbuncles off

  And blossom like the flowers in May.

  — So mankind, to angelic eyes,

  So, through the scenes of life below,

  In life’s ironical disguise,

  A travesty of man, ye go:

  But fear not: ere the curtain fall,

  Death in the transformation scene

  Steps forward from her pedestal,

  Apparent, as the fairy Queen;

  And coming, frees you in a trice

  From all your lendings — lust of fame,

  Ungainly virtue, ugly vice,

  Terro
r and tyranny and shame.

  So each, at last himself, for good

  In that dear country lays him down,

  At last beloved and understood

  And pure in feature and renown.

  STILL I LOVE TO RHYME

  Still I love to rhyme, and still more, rhyming, to wander

  Far from the commoner way;

  Old-time trills and falls by the brook-side still do I ponder,

  Dreaming to-morrow to-day.

  Come here, come, revive me, Sun-God, teach me, Apollo,

  Measures descanted before;

  Since I ancient verses, I emulous follow,

  Prints in the marbles of yore.

  Still strange, strange, they sound in old-young raiment invested,

  Songs for the brain to forget —

  Young song-birds elate to grave old temples benested

  Piping and chirruping yet.

  Thoughts? No thought has yet unskilled attempted to flutter

  Trammelled so vilely in verse;

  He who writes but aims at fame and his bread and his butter,

  Won with a groan and a curse.

  LONG TIME I LAY IN LITTLE EASE

  Long time I lay in little ease

  Where, placed by the Turanian,

  Marseilles, the many-masted, sees

  The blue Mediterranean.

  Now songful in the hour of sport,

  Now riotous for wages,

  She camps around her ancient port,

  As ancient of the ages.

  Algerian airs through all the place

  Unconquerably sally;

  Incomparable women pace

  The shadows of the alley.

  And high o’er dark and graving yard

  And where the sky is paler,

  The golden virgin of the guard

  Shines, beckoning the sailor.

  She hears the city roar on high,

  Thief, prostitute, and banker;

  She sees the masted vessels lie

  Immovably at anchor.

  She sees the snowy islets dot

  The sea’s immortal azure,

  And If, that castellated spot,

  Tower, turret, and embrasure.

  FLOWER GOD, GOD OF THE SPRING

  Flower god, god of the spring, beautiful, bountiful,

  Cold-dyed shield in the sky, lover of versicles,

  Here I wander in April

  Cold, grey-headed; and still to my

  Heart, Spring comes with a bound, Spring the deliverer,