Poems by Robert Louis StevensonI woke before the morning, I was happy all the day,
I never said an ugly word, but smiled and stuck to play.
We built a ship upon the stairs
All made of the back-bedroom chairs,
And filled it full of soft pillows
It is very nice to think
The world is full of meat and drink,
With little children saying grace
MOTLEY I count the only wear
That suits, in this mixed world, the truly wise,
Who boldly smile upon despair
ABOUT the sheltered garden ground
The trees stand strangely still.
The vale ne'er seemed so deep before,
NOW in the sky
And on the hearth of
Now in a drawer the direful cane,
That sceptre of the . . . reign,
GO(D) knows, my Martial, if we two could be
To enjoy our days set wholly free;
To the true life together bend our mind,
O NEPOS, twice my neigh(b)our (since at home
We're door by door, by Flora's temple dome;
CALL me not rebel, though { here at every word
{in what I sing
If I no longer hail thee{ King and Lord
{ Lord and King
FOR these are sacred fishes all
Who know that lord that is the lord of all;
Come to the brim and nose the friendly hand
In winter I get up at night
And dress by yellow candle-light.
In summer quite the other way,
I have to go to bed by day.
BEFORE this little gift was come
The little owner had made haste for home;
And from the door of where the eternal dwell,
BEHOLD, as goblins dark of mien
And portly tyrants dyed with crime
Change, in the transformation scene,
What are you able to build with your blocks?
Castles and palaces, temples and docks.
Rain may keep raining, and others go roam,
HOME from the daisied meadows, where you linger yet -
Home, golden-headed playmate, ere the sun is set;
COME, here is adieu to the city
And hurrah for the country again.
The broad road lies before me
Watered with last night's rain.
COME, my beloved, hear from me
Tales of the woods or open sea.
Let our aspiring fancy rise
LOOK round: You see a little supper room;
But from my window, lo! great Caesar's tomb!
THIS girl was sweeter than the song of swans,
And daintier than the lamb upon the lawns
MY Martial owns a garden, famed to please,
Beyond the glades of the Hesperides;
Along Janiculum lies the chosen block
YOU fear, Ligurra - above all, you long -
That I should smite you with a stinging song.
NOW Antoninus, in a smiling age,
Counts of his life the fifteenth finished stage.
The rounded days and the safe years he sees,
DEATH, to the dead for evermore
A King, a God, the last, the best of friends -
Whene'er this mortal journey ends
MY first gift and my last, to you
I dedicate this fascicle of songs -
The only wealth I have:
Just as they are, to you.
TO her, for I must still regard her
As feminine in her degree,
Who has been my unkind bombarder
WITH caws and chirrupings, the woods
In this thin sun rejoice.
The Psalm seems but the little kirk
EARLY in the morning I hear on your piano
You (at least, I guess it's you) proceed to learn to play.
WHETHER upon the garden seat
You lounge with your uplifted feet
Under the May's whole Heaven of blue;
HERE lies Erotion, whom at six years old
Fate pilfered.Stranger (when I too am cold,
Who shall succeed me in my rural field),
The lights from the parlour and kitchen shone out
Through the blinds and the windows and bars;
FAIR Isle at Sea - thy lovely name
Soft in my ear like music came.
That sea I loved, and once or twice
Come up here, O dusty feet!
Here is fairy ready to eat.
Here in my retiring room,
Children ,you may dine
FAREWELL, and when forth
I through the Golden Gates to Golden Isles
Steer without smiling, through the sea of smiles,
The coach is at the door at last;
The eager children, mounting fast
And kissing hands, in chorus sing:
FEAR not, dear friend, but freely live your days
Though lesser lives should suffer.Such am I,
FIXED is the doom; and to the last of years
Teacher and taught, friend, lover, parent, child,
FLOWER god, god of the spring, beautiful, bountiful,
Cold-dyed shield in the sky, lover of versicles,
Here I wander in April
WHEN Thomas set this tablet here,
Time laughed at the vain chanticleer;
And ere the moss had dimmed the stone,
Little Indian, Sioux, or Crow,
Little frosty Eskimo,
Little Turk or Japanee,
Oh! don't you wish that you were me?
Up into the cherry tree
Who should climb but little me?
I held the trunk with both my hands
And looked abroad in foreign lands.
GO, little book - the ancient phrase
And still the daintiest - go your ways,
My Otto, over sea and land,
GOD gave to me a child in part,
Yet wholly gave the father's heart:
Child of my soul, O whither now,
Children, you are very little,
And your bones are very brittle;
If you would grow great and stately,
Then the bright lamp is carried in,
The sunless hours again begin;
O'er all without, in field and lane,
HAD I the power that have the will,
The enfeebled will - a modern curse -
This book of mine should blossom still
HAIL!Childish slaves of social rules
You had yourselves a hand in making!
How I could shake your faith, ye fools,
HAIL, guest, and enter freely!All you see
Is, for your momentary visit, yours; and we
The world is so full of a number of things,
I'm sure we should all be as happy as kings.
Who comes to-night? We open the doors in vain.
Who comes? My bursting walls, can you contain
Dear Uncle Jim. this garden ground
That now you smoke your pipe around,
has seen immortal actions done
COME, my little children, here are songs for you;
Some are short and some are long, and all, all are new.
I AM like one that for long days had sate,
With seaward eyes set keen against the gale,
I DO not fear to own me kin
To the glad clods in which spring flowers begin;
Or to my brothers, the great trees,
I.
I DREAMED of forest alleys fair
And fields of gray-flowered grass,
Where by the yellow summer moon
My Jenny seemed to pass.
I KNOW not how, but as I count
The beads of former years,
Old laughter catches in my throat
With the very feel of tears.
I LOVE to be warm by the red fireside,
I love to be wet with rain:
I love to be welcome at lamplit doors,
I NOW, O friend, whom noiselessly the snows
Settle around, and whose small chamber grows
I WHO all the winter through
Cherished other loves than you,
And kept hands with hoary policy in marriage-bed and pew;
I, WHOM Apollo sometime visited,
Or feigned to visit, now, my day being done,
Do slumber wholly; nor shall know at all
God, if this were enough,
That I see things bare to the buff
And up to the buttocks in mire;
That I ask nor hope nor hire,
YOU, Charidemus, who my cradle swung,
And watched me all the days that I was young;
We see you as we see a face
That trembles in a forest place
Upon the mirror of a pool
Forever quiet, clear and cool;
Over the borders, a sin without pardon,
Breaking the branches and crawling below,
KNOW you the river near to Grez,
A river deep and clear?
Among the lilies all the way,
That ancient river runs to-day
LATE, O miller,
The birds are silent,
The darkness falls.
In the house the lights are lighted.
See, in the valley they twinkle,
LET love go, if go she will.
Seek not, O fool, her wanton flight to stay.
Of all she gives and takes away
LIGHT as the linnet on my way I start,
For all my pack I bear a chartered heart.
Forth on the world without a guide or chart,
LO! in thine honest eyes I read
The auspicious beacon that shall lead,
After long sailing in deep seas,
LO, now, my guest, if aught amiss were said,
Forgive it and dismiss it from your head.
LONG TIME I LAY IN LITTLE EASE
LONG time I lay in little ease
Where, placed by the Turanian,
When I am grown to man's estate
I shall be very proud and great,
And tell the other girls and boys
Not to meddle with my toys.
Smooth it glides upon its travel,
Here a wimple, there a gleam--
O the clean gravel!
O the smooth stream!
LOUD and low in the chimney
The squalls suspire;
Then like an answer dwindles
And glows the fire,
AS Love and Hope together
Walk by me for a while,
Link-armed the ways they travel
For many a pleasant mile -
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,
Bring the comb and play upon it!
Marching, here we come!
Willie cocks his highland bonnet,
Johnnie beats the drum.
MEN are Heaven's piers; they evermore
Unwearying bear the skyey floor;
Man's theatre they bear with ease,
MINE eyes were swift to know thee, and my heart
As swift to love.I did become at once
Thine wholly, thine unalterably, thine
FOR some abiding central source of power,
Strong-smitten steady chords, ye seem to flow
And, flowing, carry virtue.Far below,
My bed is like a little boat;
Nurse helps me in when I embark;
She girds me in my sailor's coat
And starts me in the dark.
MY heart, when first the blackbird sings,
My heart drinks in the song:
Cool pleasure fills my bosom through
Down by a shining water well
I found a very little dell,
No higher than my head.
The heather and the gorse about
MY love was warm; for that I crossed
The mountains and the sea,
Nor counted that endeavour lost
That gave my love to me.
From Child's Garden of Verses
I have a little shadow that goes in and out with me,
THERE'S just a twinkle in your eye
That seems to say I MIGHT, if I
Were only bold enough to try
An arm about your waist.
Birds all the summer day
Flutter and quarrel
Here in the arbour-like
Tent of the laurel.
Here in the fork
When the golden day is done,
Through the closing portal,
Child and garden, Flower and sun,
Vanish all things mortal.
NOW bare to the beholder's eye
Your late denuded bindings lie,
Subsiding slowly where they fell,
A disinvested citadel;
NOW when the number of my years
Is all fulfilled, and I
From sedentary life
Shall rouse me up to die,
O DULL cold northern sky,
O brawling sabbath bells,
O feebly twittering Autumn bird that tells
The year is like to die!
ON now, although the year be done,
Now, although the love be dead,
Dead and gone;
Hear me, O loved and cherished one,
OVER the land is April,
Over my heart a rose;
Over the high, brown mountain
The sound of singing goes.
Summer fading, winter comes--
Frosty mornings, tingling thumbs,
Window robins, winter rooks,
And the picture story-books.
Three of us afloat in the meadow by the swing,
Three of us abroad in the basket on the lea.
I ASK good things that I detest,
With speeches fair;
Heed not, I pray Thee, Lord, my breast,
But hear my prayer.
BY sunny market-place and street
Wherever I go my drum I beat,
And wherever I go in my coat of red
The rain is raining all around,
It falls on field and tree,
It rains on the umbrellas here,
And on the ships at sea.
Under the wide and starry sky
Dig the grave and let me lie.
Glad did I live and gladly die,
And I laid me down with a will.
I WILL make you brooches and toys for your delight
Of bird-song at morning and star-shine at night.
All around the house is the jet-black night;
It stares through the window-pane;
SINCE thou hast given me this good hope, O God,
That while my footsteps tread the flowery sod
SINCE years ago for evermore
My cedar ship I drew to shore;
And to the road and riverbed
And the green, nodding reeds, I said
Of speckled eggs the birdie sings
And nests among the trees;
The sailor sings of ropes and things
In ships upon the seas.
SMALL is the trust when love is green
In sap of early years;
A little thing steps in between
And kisses turn to tears.
SO live, so love, so use that fragile hour,
That when the dark hand of the shining power
As in the hostel by the bridge I sate,
Nailed with indifference fondly deemed complete,
NOR judge me light, tho' light at times I seem,
And lightly in the stress of fortune bear
So shall this book wax like unto a well,
Fairy with mirrored flowers about the brim,
I have a hoard of treasure in my breast;
The grange of memory steams against the door,
YES, friend, I own these tales of Arabia
Smile not, as smiled their flawless originals,
Age-old but yet untamed, for ages
TEMPEST tossed and sore afflicted, sin defiled and care oppressed,
THE angler rose, he took his rod,
He kneeled and made his prayers to God.
The living God sat overhead:
CLINKUM-CLANK in the rain they ride,
Down by the braes and the grey sea-side;
Clinkum-clank by stane and cairn,
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.
The friendly cow all red and white,
I love with all my heart:
She gives me cream with all her might,
To eat with apple-tart.
When the grass was closely mown,
Walking on the lawn alone,
In the turf a hole I found
And hid a soldier underground.
THE broad sun,
The bright day:
White sails
On the blue bay:
The far-farers
Draw away.
Light the fires
And close the door.
All the names I know from nurse:
Gardener's garters, Shepherd's purse,
Bachelor's buttons, Lady's smock,
The gardener does not love to talk,
He makes me keep the gravel walk;
And when he puts his tools away,
COME to me, all ye that labour; I will give your spirits rest;
Here apart in starry quiet I will give you rest.
HERE in the quiet eve
My thankful eyes receive
The quiet light.
I see the trees stand fair
Against the faded air,
WHAT man may learn, what man may do,
Of right or wrong of false or true,
While, skipper-like, his course he steers
WHEN the sun comes after rain
And the bird is in the blue,
The girls go down the lane
Two by two.
Dark brown is the river,
Golden is the sand.
It flows along for ever,
With trees on either hand.
Green leaves a-floating,
A child should always say what's true
And speak when he is spoken to,
And behave mannerly at table;
Whenever the moon and stars are set,
Whenever the wind is high,
All night long in the dark and wet,
A man goes riding by.
Late lies the wintry sun a-bed,
A frosty, fiery sleepy-head;
Blinks but an hour or two; and then,
YOU looked so tempting in the pew,
You looked so sly and calm -
My trembling fingers played with yours
All night long and every night,
When my mama puts out the light,
I see the people marching by,
As plain as day before my eye.
