Robert Louis Stevenson

“ The long, resounding foreland, Pharos stands.
These are thy works, O father, these thy crown;
Whether on high the air be pure, they shine
Along the yellowing sunset, and all night
Among the unnumbered stars of God they shine;
p. 61Or whether fogs arise and far and wide
The low sea-level drown—each finds a tongue
And all night long the tolling bell resounds:
So shine, so toll, till night be overpast,
Till the stars vanish, till the sun return,
And in the haven rides the fleet secure. ”

“ Here are the green trees rustling.
⁠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! ”

“ Up the sun-chequered, devious bed
To the far-distant fountain-head.
Not one quick beat of your warm heart,
Nor thought that came to you apart,
Pleasure nor pity, love nor pain
Nor sorrow, has gone by in vain ”

“ Dear Heaven, with such a rancid life,
⁠Were it not better far to die?
Yet still, about the human pale,
⁠I love to scamper, love to race,
To swing by my irreverent tail
⁠All over the most holy place ”

“ With careless looks may pass you by.
p. 50XXIV Not yet, my soul, these friendly fields desert,
Where thou with grass, and rivers, and the breeze,
And the bright face of day, thy dalliance hadst;
Where to thine ear first sang the enraptured birds;
Where love and thou that lasting bargain made.
The ship rides trimmed, and from the eternal shore
Thou hearest airy voices; but not yet
Depart, my soul, not yet awhile depart.
Freedom is far, rest far. Thou art with life
Too closely woven, nerve with nerve intwined ”

“ Thus, if I wish the diphthong ou to have its proper value, I may write oor instead of our; many have done so and lived, and the pillars of the universe remained unshaken. But if I did so, and came presently to doun, which is the classical Scots spelling of the English down, I should begin to feel uneasy; and if I went on a little farther, and came to a classical Scots word, like stour or dour or clour, I should know precisely where I was—that is to say, that I was out of sight of land on those high seas of spelling reform in which so many strong swimmers have toiled vainly. ”

“ IN MEMORIAM F. A. S.
Yet, O stricken heart, remember, O remember
⁠How of human days he lived the better part.
April came to bloom and never dim December
⁠Breathed its killing chills upon the head or heart. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Heaven guide the reader through that labyrinth! But in Scots it dodges usually from the short I, as in grin, to the open E, as in mere. Find and blind, I may remark, are pronounced to rhyme with the preterite of grin. ”

“ Strains by good thoughts attended, like the spring
The swallows follow over land and sea.
Pain sleeps at once; at once, with open eyes,
Dozing despair awakes. The shepherd sees
His flock come bleating home; the seaman hears
Once more the cordage rattle. Airs of home!
Youth, love and roses blossom ”

“ Who comes to-night? We ope the doors in vain.
Who comes? My bursting walls, can you contain
The presences that now together throng
Your narrow entry, as with flowers and song,
As with the air of life, the breath of talk? ”

“ Lord, thy most pointed pleasure take
And stab my spirit broad awake;
Or, Lord, if too obdurate I,
Choose thou, before that spirit die,
A piercing pain, a killing sin,
And to my dead heart run them in! ”

“ THE CELESTIAL SURGEON
If I have faltered more or less
In my great task of happiness;
If I have moved among my race
And shown no glorious morning face;
If beams from happy human eyes
Have moved me not ”

“ 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. ”

“ Aloof, unhelpful, and unkind,
The prisoners of the iron mind,
Where nothing speaks except the hell
The unfraternal brothers dwell.
Poor passionate men, still clothed afresh
With agonising folds of flesh ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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 ”

“ 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 ”

“ 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 ”

“ There's just ae thing I cannae bear,
⁠An' that's my conscience. ”

“ Why is the room so gaunt and great?
Why am I lying awake so late?
Mother. Fear not at all: the night is still.
Nothing is here that means you ill—
Nothing but lamps the whole town through,
And never a child awake but you. ”

“ Seeks first the ancestral altars, then the hearth
Long cold with rains, and where old terror lodged,
And where the dead. So thee undying Hope,
With all her pack, hunts screaming through the years:
Here, there, thou fleeëst; but nor here nor there
The pleasant gods abide, the glory dwells. ”

“ 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; ”

“ Some profit yet survives of all your pangs and tears.
The child, the seed, the grain of corn,
The acorn on the hill,
Each for some separate end is born
In season fit, and still
Each must in strength arise to work the almighty will. ”

“ Eternal granite hewn from the living isle
And dowelled with brute iron, rears a tower
That from its wet foundation to its crown
Of glittering glass, stands, in the sweep of winds,
Immovable, immortal, eminent. ”

“ Let first the onion flourish there,
Rose among roots, the maiden-fair,
Wine-scented and poetic soul
Of the capacious salad bowl. ”

“ Let be a man!—
My conscience! whan my han’s were fu’,
Whaur were ye than?
An’ there were a’ the lures o’ life,
There pleesure skirlin’ on the fife,
There anger, wi’ the hotchin’ knife
Ground shairp in Hell—
My conscience!—you that’s like a wife!—
Whaur was yoursel’?
I ken it fine: just waitin’ here,
To gar the evil waur appear,
To clart the guid, confüse the clear,
Mis-ca’ the great,
My conscience! an’ to raise a steer
Whan a’s ower late. ”

“ 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 ”

“ 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. ”

“ As I have stuck for the most part to the proper spelling, I append a table of some common vowel sounds which no one need consult; and just to prove that I belong to my age and have in me the stuff of a reformer, I have used modification marks throughout. Thus I can tell myself, not without pride, that I have added a fresh stumbling-block for English readers, and p. xito a page of print in my native tongue, have lent a new uncouthness. Sed non nobis. ”

“ Wi' sappy unction, hoo he burkes
The hopes o' men that trust in works,
Expounds the fau'ts o' ither kirks,
⁠An' shaws the best o' them
No muckle better than mere Turks,
⁠When a's confessed o' them.
Bethankit! what a bonny creed!
What mair would ony Christian need?—
The braw words rumm'le ower his heid,
⁠Nor steer the sleeper;
And in their restin' graves, the deid
⁠Sleep aye the deeper.
Note.—It may be guessed by some that I had a certain parish in my eye, and this makes it proper I should add a word of disclamation. In my time there have been two ministers in that parish. ”

“ The haunted, land of song; and by the wells
Where most the gods frequent. There Chiron old,
In the Pelethronian antre, taught thee lore:
The plants, he taught, and by the shining stars
In forests dim to steer. ”

“ Generosity he has, such as is possible to those who practise an art, never to those who drive a trade; discretion, tested by a hundred secrets; tact, tried in a thousand embarrassments; and what are more important, Heraclean cheerfulness and courage. So it is that he brings air and cheer into the sickroom, and often enough, though not so often as he wishes, brings healing. ”

“ 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. ”

“ And the Scots tongue has an orthography of its own, lacking neither “authority nor author.” Yet the temptation is great to lend a little guidance to the bewildered Englishman. Some simple phonetic artifice might defend your verses from barbarous mishandling, and yet not injure any vested interest. ”

“ And sees on this tormented stage
The noble war of mankind rage:
What if his vivifying eye,
O monks, should pass your corner by?
For still the Lord is Lord of might;
In deeds, in deeds, he takes delight ”

“ O, I wad like to ken—to the beggar-wife says I—
Hoo a’ things come to be whaur we find them when we try,
The lasses in their claes an’ the fishes in the sea.
—It’s gey an’ easy spierin’, says the beggar-wife to me.
O, I wad like to ken—to the beggar-wife says I—
Why lads are a’ to sell an’ lasses a’ to buy;
An’ naebody for dacency but barely twa or three
—It’s gey an’ easy spierin’, says the beggar-wife to me.
p. 99O, I wad like to ken—to the beggar-wife says I—
Gin death’s as shüre to men as killin’ is to kye,
Why God has filled the yearth sae fu’ o’ tasty things to pree. ”

“ But why present a pig in a poke
⁠To a gentleman like me?
They ither folk their parritch eat
⁠An' sup their sugared tea;
But the mind is no to be wyled wi' meat
⁠Wi' a gentleman like me.
They ither folk, they court their joes
⁠At gloamin' on the lea ”

“ They suffer, bleed, or dee;
But a’ thir things are an emp’y sang
To a gentleman like me.
It’s a different thing that I demand,
Tho’ humble as can be—
A statement fair in my Maker’s hand
To a gentleman like me:
A clear account writ fair an’ broad,
An’ a plain apologie;
Or the deevil a ceevil word to God
From a gentleman like me.
p. 110X—THEIR LAUREATE TO AN ACADEMY CLASS DINNER CLUB Dear Thamson class, whaure’er I gang
It aye comes ower me wi’ a spang:
“Lordsake! they Thamson lads— (deil hang
Or else Lord mend them!) ”

“ The simmer brunt, the winter blae,
The face of earth a' fyled wi' clay
⁠An' dour wi' chuckies,
An' life a rough an' land'art play
⁠For country buckies.
An' food's anither name for clart;
An' beasts an' brambles bite an' scart ”

“ An' to my chalmer a' my lane
⁠I creep apairt,
My conscience! hoo the yammerin' pain
⁠Stends to my heart!
A' day wi' various ends in view
The hairsts o' time I had to pu',
An' made a hash wad staw a soo,
⁠Let be a man!—
My conscience! ”

“ 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 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? ”