Robert Louis Stevenson

“ And methought that beauty and terror are only one, not two;
And the world has room for love, and death, and thunder, and dew;
And all the sinews of hell slumber in summer air;
And the face of God is a rock, but the face of the rock is fair.
Beneficent streams of tears flow at the finger of pain;
And out of the cloud that smites, beneficent rivers of rain. ”

“ Life, that delights in the brave, gave it himself for a gage.
Fair was the crown to behold, and beauty its poorest part—
At once the scar of the wound and the order pinned on the heart.
The beauties of man are frail, and the silver lies in the dust,
And the queen that we call to mind sleeps with the brave and the just;
Sleeps with the weary at length; but, honoured and ever fair,
Shines in the eye of the mind the crown of the silver hair. ”

“ Let us, who part like brothers, part like bards;
And you in your tongue and measure, I in mine,
Our now division duly solemnise.
Unlike the strains, and yet the theme is one:
The strains unlike, and how unlike their fate!
You to the blinding palace-yard shall call
The prefect of the singers, and to him,
Listening devout, your valedictory verse
Deliver; he, his attribute fulfilled,
To the island chorus hand your measures on,
Wed now with harmony: so them, at last,
Night after night, in the open hall of dance,
Shall thirty matted men, to the clapped hand,
Intone and bray and bark. ”

“ The hue of heather-honey,
The hue of honey-bees,
Shall tinge her golden shoulder,
Shall gild her tawny knees.
IX Let Beauty awake in the morn from beautiful dreams,
Beauty awake from rest!
Let Beauty awake
For Beauty’s sake
In the hour when the birds awake in the brake
And the stars are bright in the west!
Let Beauty awake in the eve from the slumber of day,
Awake in the crimson eve! ”

“ TO PRINCESS KAIULANI
[Written in April to Kaiulani in the April of her age; and at Waikiki, within easy walk of Kaiulani's banyan! When she comes to my land and her father's, and the rain beats upon the window (as I fear it will) , let her look at this page; it will be like a weed gathered and pressed at home; and she will remember her own islands, and the shadow of the mighty tree; and she will hear the peacocks screaming in the dusk and the wind blowing in the palms; and she will think of her father sitting there alone.—R. L. S.] ”

“ And the shining moon arising,
⁠How the boat drew homeward filled with flowers!
⁠Bright were your eyes in the night:
⁠We have lived, my love—
⁠O, we have loved, my love.
Frost has bound our flowing river,
⁠Snow has whitened all our island brake,
And beside the winter fagot
⁠Joan and Darby doze and dream and wake.
⁠Still, in the river of dreams
⁠Swims the boat of love—
⁠Hark! chimes the falling oar! ”

“ And with a tide of song his silence broke.
XX—TO --- I knew thee strong and quiet like the hills;
I knew thee apt to pity, brave to endure,
In peace or war a Roman full equipt;
And just I knew thee, like the fabled kings
Who by the loud sea-shore gave judgment forth,
From dawn to eve, bearded and few of words.
What, what, was I to honour thee? A child;
A youth in ardour but a child in strength,
Who after virtue’s golden chariot-wheels
Runs ever panting, nor attains the goal. ”

“ In the beloved hour that ushers day,
In the pure dew, under the breaking grey,
One bird, ere yet the woodland quires awake,
With brief réveillé summons all the brake:
Chirp, chirp, it goes; nor waits an answer long;
And that small signal fills the grove with song. ”

“ Cragged, spired, and turreted, her virgin fort
Beflagged. About, on seaward-drooping hills,
New folds of city glitter. Last, the Forth
Wheels ample waters set with sacred isles,
And populous Fife smokes with a score of towns.
There, on the sunny frontage of a hill,
Hard by the house of kings, repose the dead,
My dead, the ready and the strong of word.
Their works, the salt-encrusted, still survive;
The sea bombards their founded towers; the night
Thrills pierced with their strong lamps. ”

“ The Silver Ship, my King—that was her name
In the bright islands whence your fathers came [1] —
The Silver Ship, at rest from winds and tides,
Below your palace in your harbour rides:
And the seafarers, sitting safe on shore,
Like eager merchants count their treasures o'er.
One gift they find, one strange and lovely thing,
Now doubly precious since it pleased a king.
The right, my liege, is ancient as the lyre
For bards to give to kings what kings admire. ”

“ III—YOUTH AND LOVE—II To the heart of youth the world is a highwayside.
Passing for ever, he fares; and on either hand,
Deep in the gardens golden pavilions hide,
Nestle in orchard bloom, and far on the level land
Call him with lighted lamp in the eventide.
Thick as the stars at night when the moon is down,
Pleasures assail him. ”

“ The stormy evening closes now in vain,
Loud wails the wind and beats the driving rain,
⁠While here in sheltered house
⁠With fire-ypainted walls,
⁠I hear the wind abroad,
⁠I hark the calling squalls—
'Blow, blow,' I cry, 'you burst your cheeks in vain! ”

“ Hung, caught in thickets, like a schoolboy’s kite.
Here from the sea the unfruitful sun shall rise,
Bathe the bare deck and blind the unshielded eyes;
The allotted hours aloft shall wheel in vain
And in the unpregnant ocean plunge again.
Assault of squalls that mock the watchful guard,
And pluck the bursting canvas from the yard,
And senseless clamour of the calm, at night
Must mar your slumbers. By the plunging light,
In beetle-haunted, most unwomanly bower
Of the wild-swerving cabin, hour by hour . . . ”

“ In the field of heather,
Songs of his fashion bring
The swains together.
And when the west is red
With the sunset embers,
The lover lingers and sings
And the maid remembers.
XV In the highlands, in the country places,
Where the old plain men have rosy faces,
And the young fair maidens
Quiet eyes;
Where essential silence cheers and blesses,
And for ever in the hill-recesses
Her more lovely music
Broods and dies.
O to mount again where erst I haunted;
Where the old red hills are bird-enchanted,
And the low green meadows
Bright with sward ”

“ YOUTH AND LOVE—I
Once only by the garden gate
⁠Our lips we joined and parted.
I must fulfil an empty fate
⁠And travel the uncharted.
Hail and farewell! I must arise,
⁠Leave here the fatted cattle,
And paint on foreign lands and skies
⁠My Odyssey of battle. ”

“ EVENSONG
The embers of the day are red
Beyond the murky hill.
The kitchen smokes: the bed
In the darkling house is spread:
The great sky darkens overhead,
And the great woods are shrill.
So far have I been led,
Lord, by Thy will:
So far I have followed, Lord, and wondered still. ”

“ Son of my woman's body, you go, to the drum and fife,
To taste the colour of love and the other side of life—
From out of the dainty the rude, the strong from out of the frail,
Eternally through the ages from the female comes the male. ”

“ THE VAGABOND
(To an air of Schubert)
Give to me the life I love,
⁠Let the lave go by me,
Give the jolly heaven above
⁠And the byway nigh me.
Bed in the bush with stars to see,
⁠Bread I dip in the river—
There's the life for a man like me,
⁠There's the life for ever.
Let the blow fall soon or late,
⁠Let what will be o'er me;
Give the face of earth around
⁠And the road before me.
Wealth I seek not, hope nor love,
⁠Nor a friend to know me;
All I seek, the heaven above
⁠And the road below me.
Or let autumn fall on me
⁠Where afield I linger,
Silencing the bird on tree,
⁠Biting the blue finger. ”

“ Fly crying and convulse tumultuous palms.
I rose and strolled. The isle was all bright sand,
And flailing fans and shadows of the palm;
The heaven all moon and wind and the blind vault;
The keenest planet slain, for Venus slept. ”

“ Merry of soul he sailed on a day
⁠Over the sea to Skye.
Mull was astern, Rum on the port,
⁠Eigg on the starboard bow;
Glory of youth glowed in his soul:
⁠Where is that glory now?
Sing me a song of a lad that is gone,
⁠Say, could that lad be I? ”

“ Life and death.
XVI
(To the tune of Wandering Willie) Home no more home to me, whither must I wander?
Hunger my driver, I go where I must.
Cold blows the winter wind over hill and heather;
Thick drives the rain, and my roof is in the dust.
Loved of wise men was the shade of my roof-tree.
The true word of welcome was spoken in the door—
Dear days of old, with the faces in the firelight,
Kind folks of old, you come again no more.
Home was home then, my dear, full of kindly faces,
Home was home then, my dear, happy for the child.
Fire and the windows bright glittered on the moorland ”

“ Marks the huge sun now downward soar.
Farewell. We twain shall meet no more.
Farewell. I watch with bursting sigh
My late contemned occasion die.
I linger useless in my tent:
Farewell, fair day, so foully spent! ”

“ And the whole earth, thy threshing-floor!
The drums of war, the drums of peace,
Roll through our cities without cease,
And all the iron halls of life
Ring with the unremitting strife.
The common lot we scarce perceive. ”

“ And the answering glory of battle fill my heart;
To thrill with the joy of girded men
To go on for ever and fail and go on again,
And be mauled to the earth and arise,
And contend for the shade of a word and a thing not seen with the eyes:
With the half of a broken hope for a pillow at night
That somehow the right is the right
And the smooth shall bloom from the rough:
Lord, if that were enough? ”

“ Along whose shore the numerous footfalls cease,
The voices and the tears of life expire.
Thither the prints go down, the hero’s way
Trod large upon the sand, the trembling maid’s:
Nimrod that wound his trumpet in the wood,
And the poor, dreaming child, hunter of flowers,
That here his hunting closes with the great:
So one and all go down, nor aught returns. ”

“ To you, let snow and roses
⁠And golden locks belong.
These are the world's enslavers,
⁠Let these delight the throng.
For her of duskier lustre
⁠Whose favour still I wear,
The snow be in her kirtle,
⁠The rose be in her hair! ”

“ Drugged with slumber and milk, you wait the day of the Lord.
Infant bridegroom, uncrowned king, unanointed priest,
Soldier, lover, explorer, I see you nuzzle the breast.
You that grope in my bosom shall load the ladies with rings,
You, that came forth through the doors, shall burst the doors of kings.
XIV Bright is the ring of words
When the right man rings them,
Fair the fall of songs
When the singer sings them. ”

“ I ran as, at the cannon's roar,
⁠The troops the ramparts man—
As in the holy house of yore
⁠The willing Eli ran.
Here, lady, lo! that servant stands
⁠You picked from passing men,
And should you need nor heart nor hands
⁠He bows and goes again. ”

“ One ultimate survivor lingers on,
And smiles, and to his ancient heart recalls
The long forgotten. Ere the morrow die,
He too, returning, through the curtain comes,
And the new age forgets us and goes on. ”

“ TO MY OLD FAMILIARS
Do you remember—can we e'er forget?—
How, in the coiled perplexities of youth,
In our wild climate, in our scowling town,
We gloomed and shivered, sorrowed, sobbed and feared? ”

“ The untented Kosmos my abode,
⁠I pass, a wilful stranger:
My mistress still the open road
⁠And the bright eyes of danger. ”

“ God, if this were enough,
That I see things bare to the buff
And up to the buttocks in mire; ”