Complete Works of Robert Louis Stevenson (Illustrated) (495 page)

 

TO ANY READER

 

As from the house your mother sees

You playing round the garden trees,

So you may see, if you will look

Through the windows of this book,

Another child, far, far away,

And in another garden, play.

But do not think you can at all,

By knocking on the window, call

That child to hear you. He intent

Is all on his play-business bent.

He does not hear; he will not look,

Nor yet be lured out of this book.

For, long ago, the truth to say,

He has grown up and gone away,

And it is but a child of air

That lingers in the garden there.

 

UNDERWOODS

 

Of all my verse, like not a single line;

But like my title, for it is not mine.

That title from a better man I stole;

Ah, how much better, had I stol’n the whole!

 

   This collection of poems was published in 1887 and comprises two books, Book I with 38 poems in English, Book II with 16 poems in Scots.

 

 

CONTENTS

DEDICATION

BOOK I

ENVOY

A SONG OF THE ROAD

THE CANOE SPEAKS

THE HOUSE BEAUTIFUL

A VISIT FROM THE SEA

TO A GARDENER

TO MINNIE

TO K. de M.

TO N. V. de G. S.

TO WILL. H. LOW

TO MRS. WILL. H. LOW

TO H. F. BROWN

TO ANDREW LANG

ET TU IN ARCADIA VIXISTI

TO W.E. HENLEY

HENRY JAMES

THE MIRROR SPEAKS

KATHARINE

TO F. J. S.

REQUIEM

THE CELESTIAL SURGEON

OUR LADY OF THE SNOWS

THE SICK CHILD

IN MEMORIAM F.A.S.

TO MY FATHER

IN THE STATES

A PORTRAIT

A CAMP

THE COUNTRY OF THE CAMISARDS

SKERRYVORE

SKERRYVORE

THE PARALLEL

 

BOOK II

IN SCOTS

TABLE OF COMMON SCOTTISH VOWEL SOUNDS

THE MAKER TO POSTERITY

ILLE TERRARUM

A MILE AN’ A BITTOCK

A LOWDEN SABBATH MORN

THE SPAEWIFE

THE BLAST —

THE COUNTERBLAST —

THE COUNTERBLAST IRONICAL

THEIR LAUREATE TO AN ACADEMY CLASS

DINNER CLUB

EMBRO HIE KIRK

THE SCOTSMAN’S RETURN FROM ABROAD

IN A LETTER FROM MR. THOMSON TO MR. JOHNSTONE

MY CONSCIENCE!

TO DOCTOR JOHN BROWN

 

 

DEDICATION

 

 

There are men and classes of men that stand above the common herd: the soldier, the sailor, and the shepherd not unfrequently; the artist rarely; rarelier still, the clergyman; the physician almost as a rule. He is the flower (such as it is) of our civilisation; and when that stage of man is done with, and only remembered to be marvelled at in history, he will be thought to have shared as little as any in the defects of the period, and most notably exhibited the virtues of the race. 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.

Gratitude is but a lame sentiment; thanks, when they are expressed, are often more embarrassing than welcome; and yet I must set forth mine to a few out of many doctors who have brought me comfort and help: to Dr. Willey of San Francisco, whose kindness to a stranger it must be as grateful to him, as it is touching to me, to remember; to Dr. Karl Ruedi of Davos, the good genius of the English in his frosty mountains; to Dr. Herbert of Paris, whom I knew only for a week, and to Dr. Caissot of Montpellier, whom I knew only for ten days, and who have yet written their names deeply in my memory; to Dr. Brandt of Royat; to Dr. Wakefield of Nice; to Dr. Chepmell, whose visits make it a pleasure to be ill; to Dr. Horace Dobell, so wise in counsel; to Sir Andrew Clark, so unwearied in kindness; and to that wise youth, my uncle, Dr. Balfour.

I forget as many as I remember; and I ask both to pardon me, these for silence, those for inadequate speech. But one name I have kept on purpose to the last, because it is a household word with me, and because if I had not received favours from so many hands and in so many quarters of the world, it should have stood upon this page alone: that of my friend Thomas Bodley Scott of Bournemouth. Will he accept this, although shared among so many, for a dedication to himself? and when next my ill-fortune (which has thus its pleasant side) brings him hurrying to me when he would fain sit down to meat or lie down to rest, will he care to remember that he takes this trouble for one who is not fool enough to be ungrateful?

R. L. S.

 

BOOK I

 

IN ENGLISH

 

 

I

ENVOY

 

Go, little book, and wish to all

Flowers in the garden, meat in the hall,

A bin of wine, a spice of wit,

A house with lawns enclosing it,

A living river by the door,

A nightingale in the sycamore!

 

II

A SONG OF THE ROAD

 

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
?

Whene’er I buckle on my pack

And foot it gaily in the track,

O pleasant gauger, long since dead,

I hear you fluting on ahead.

You go with me the selfsame way —

The selfsame air for me you play;

For I do think and so do you

It is the tune to travel to.

 

For who would gravely set his face

To go to this or t’other place?

There’s nothing under heav’n so blue

That’s fairly worth the travelling to.

On every hand the roads begin,

And people walk with zeal therein;

But wheresoe’er the highways tend,

Be sure there’s nothing at the end.

Then follow you, wherever hie

The travelling mountains of the sky.

Or let the streams in civil mode

Direct your choice upon a road;

For one and all, or high or low,

Will lead you where you wish to go;

And one and all go night and day

Over the hills and far away
!

Forest of Montargis, .

 

III

THE CANOE SPEAKS

 

On the great streams the ships may go

About men’s business to and fro.

But I, the egg-shell pinnace, sleep

On crystal waters ankle-deep:

I, whose diminutive design,

Of sweeter cedar, pithier pine,

Is fashioned on so frail a mould,

A hand may launch, a hand withhold:

 

I, rather, with the leaping trout

Wind, among lilies, in and out;

I, the unnamed, inviolate,

Green, rustic rivers navigate;

My dipping paddle scarcely shakes

The berry in the bramble-brakes;

Still forth on my green way I wend

Beside the cottage garden-end;

And by the nested angler fare,

And take the lovers unaware.

By willow wood and water-wheel

Speedily fleets my touching keel;

By all retired and shady spots

Where prosper dim forget-me-nots;

By meadows where at afternoon

The growing maidens troop in June

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.

When, following the recondite brook,

Sudden upon this scene I look,

And light with unfamiliar face

On chaste Diana’s bathing-place,

Loud ring the hills about and all

The shallows are abandoned....

 

 

IV

It is the season now to go

About the country high and low,

Among the lilacs hand in hand,

And two by two in fairyland.

The brooding boy, the sighing maid,

Wholly fain and half afraid,

Now meet along the hazel’d brook

To pass and linger, pause and look.

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;

He unabashed her garter saw,

That now would touch her skirts with awe.

Now by the stile ablaze she stops,

And his demurer eyes he drops;

Now they exchange averted sighs

Or stand and marry silent eyes.

And he to her a hero is

And sweeter she than primroses;

Their common silence dearer far

Than nightingale and mavis are.

Now when they sever wedded hands,

Joy trembles in their bosom-strands

And lovely laughter leaps and falls

Upon their lips in madrigals.

 

 

V

THE HOUSE BEAUTIFUL

 

A naked house, a naked moor,

A shivering pool before the door,

A garden bare of flowers and fruit

And poplars at the garden foot:

Such is the place that I live in,

Bleak without and bare within.

Yet shall your ragged moor receive

The incomparable pomp of eve,

And the cold glories of the dawn

Behind your shivering trees be drawn;

And when the wind from place to place

Doth the unmoored cloud-galleons chase,

Your garden gloom and gleam again,

With leaping sun, with glancing rain.

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;

And oft the morning muser see

Larks rising from the broomy lea,

And every fairy wheel and thread

Of cobweb, dew-bediamonded.

When daisies go, shall winter-time

Silver the simple grass with rime;

Autumnal frosts enchant the pool

And make the cart-ruts beautiful;

And when snow-bright the moor expands,

How shall your children clap their hands!

 

To make this earth, our hermitage,

A cheerful and a changeful page,

God’s bright and intricate device

Of days and seasons doth suffice.

 

VI

A VISIT FROM THE SEA

 

Far from the loud sea beaches

Where he goes fishing and crying,

Here in the inland garden

Why is the sea-gull flying?

Here are no fish to dive for;

Here is the corn and lea;

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!

Pity the sailor ashore!

Hurry him home to the ocean,

Let him come here no more!

High on the sea-cliff ledges

The white gulls are trooping and crying,

Here among rooks and roses,

Why is the sea-gull flying?

 

 

VII

TO A GARDENER

 

Friend, in my mountain-side demesne,

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