Chapter 1

Transcribed from the 1908 Chatto & Windus edition by David Price, email [email protected]

Songs of Travel

AND OTHER VERSES

BY ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON

[Picture: Chatto & Windus logo]

EIGHTH IMPRESSION

* * * * *

LONDON CHATTO & WINDUS 1908

_The following collection of verses_, _written at various times and places_, _principally after the author’s final departure from England in_ 1887, _was sent home by him for publication some months before his death_. _He had tried them in several different orders and under several different titles_, _as_ “_Songs and Notes of Travel_,” “_Posthumous Poems_,” _etc._, _and in the end left their naming and arrangement to the present editor_, _with the suggestion that they should be added as Book III. to future editions of_ “_Underwoods_.” _This suggestion it is proposed to carry out_; _but in the meantime_, _for the benefit of those who possess_ “_Underwoods_” _in its original form_, _it has been thought desirable to publish them separately in the present volume_. _They have already been included in the Edinburgh Edition of the author’s works_.

_S. C._

CONTENTS

I. THE VAGABOND—Give to me the life I love

II. YOUTH AND LOVE: I.—Once only by the garden gate

III. YOUTH AND LOVE: II.—To the heart of youth the world is a highwayside

IV. In dreams, unhappy, I behold you stand

V. She rested by the Broken Brook

VI. The infinite shining heavens

VII. Plain as the glistering planets shine

VIII. To you, let snows and roses

IX. Let Beauty awake in the morn from beautiful dreams

X. I know not how it is with you

XI. I will make you brooches and toys for your delight

XII. WE HAVE LOVED OF YORE—Berried brake and reedy island

XIII. MATER TRIUMPHANS—Son of my woman’s body, you go, to the drum and fife

XIV. Bright is the ring of words

XV. In the highlands, in the country places

XVI. Home no more home to me, wither must I wander?

XVII. WINTER—In rigorous hours, when down the iron lane

XVIII. The stormy evening closes now in vain

XIX. TO DR. HAKE—In the belovèd hour that ushers day

XX. TO ---—I knew thee strong and quiet like the hills

XXI. The morning drum-call on my eager ear

XXII. I have trod the upward and downward slope

XXIII. He hears with gladdened heart the thunder

XXIV. Farewell, fair day and fading light!

XXV. IF THIS WERE FAITH—God, if this were enough

XXVI. MY WIFE—Trusty, dusky, vivid, true

XXVII. TO THE MUSE—Resign the rhapsody, the dream

XXVIII. TO AN ISLAND PRINCESS—Since long ago, a child at home

XXIX. TO KALAKAUA—The Sliver Ship, my King—that was her name

XXX. TO PRINCESS KAIULANI—Forth form her land to mine she goes

XXXI. TO MOTHER MARYANNE—To see the infinite pity of this place

XXXII. IN MEMORIAM E. H.—I knew a silver head was bright beyond compare

XXXIII. TO MY WIFE—Long must elapse ere you behold again

XXXIV. TO MY OLD FAMILIARS—Do you remember—can we e’er forget?

XXXV. The tropics vanish, and meseems that I

XXXVI. TO S. C.—I heard the pulse of the besieging sea

XXXVII. THE HOUSE OF TEMBINOKA—_Let us_, _who part like brothers_, _part like bards_

XXXVIII. THE WOODMAN—In all the grove, not stream nor bird

XXXIX. TROPIC RAIN—As the single pang of the blow, when the metal is mingled well

XL. AN END OF TRAVEL—Let now your soul in this substantial world

XLI. We uncommiserate pass into the night

XLII. Sing me a song of a lad that is gone

XLIII. TO S. R. CROCKETT—Blows the wind to-day, and the sun and rain are flying

XLIV. EVENSONG—The embers of the day are red

I—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. White as meal the frosty field— Warm the fireside haven— Not to autumn will I yield, Not to winter even!

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 ask not, hope nor love, Nor a friend to know me; All I ask, the heaven above And the road below me.

II—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.

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

Come ill or well, the cross, the crown, The rainbow or the thunder, I fling my soul and body down For God to plough them under.

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. He to his nobler fate Fares; and but waves a hand as he passes on, Cries but a wayside word to her at the garden gate, Sings but a boyish stave and his face is gone.

IV

In dreams, unhappy, I behold you stand As heretofore: The unremembered tokens in your hand Avail no more.

No more the morning glow, no more the grace, Enshrines, endears. Cold beats the light of time upon your face And shows your tears.

He came and went. Perchance you wept a while And then forgot. Ah me! but he that left you with a smile Forgets you not.

V

She rested by the Broken Brook, She drank of Weary Well, She moved beyond my lingering look, Ah, whither none can tell!

She came, she went. In other lands, Perchance in fairer skies, Her hands shall cling with other hands, Her eyes to other eyes.

She vanished. In the sounding town, Will she remember too? Will she recall the eyes of brown As I recall the blue?

VI

The infinite shining heavens Rose and I saw in the night Uncountable angel stars Showering sorrow and light.

I saw them distant as heaven, Dumb and shining and dead, And the idle stars of the night Were dearer to me than bread.

Night after night in my sorrow The stars stood over the sea, Till lo! I looked in the dusk And a star had come down to me.

VII

Plain as the glistering planets shine When winds have cleaned the skies, Her love appeared, appealed for mine, And wantoned in her eyes.

Clear as the shining tapers burned On Cytherea’s shrine, Those brimming, lustrous beauties turned, And called and conquered mine.

The beacon-lamp that Hero lit No fairer shone on sea, No plainlier summoned will and wit, Than hers encouraged me.

I thrilled to feel her influence near, I struck my flag at sight. Her starry silence smote my ear Like sudden drums at night.

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.

VIII

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!

The hue of highland rivers Careering, full and cool, From sable on to golden, From rapid on to pool— 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! In the day’s dusk end When the shades ascend, Let her wake to the kiss of a tender friend To render again and receive!

X

I know not how it is with you— _I_ love the first and last, The whole field of the present view, The whole flow of the past.

One tittle of the things that are, Nor you should change nor I— One pebble in our path—one star In all our heaven of sky.

Our lives, and every day and hour, One symphony appear: One road, one garden—every flower And every bramble dear.

XI

I will make you brooches and toys for your delight Of bird-song at morning and star-shine at night. I will make a palace fit for you and me Of green days in forests and blue days at sea.

I will make my kitchen, and you shall keep your room, Where white flows the river and bright blows the broom, And you shall wash your linen and keep your body white In rainfall at morning and dewfall at night.

And this shall be for music when no one else is near, The fine song for singing, the rare song to hear! That only I remember, that only you admire, Of the broad road that stretches and the roadside fire.

XII—WE HAVE LOVED OF YORE (_To an air of Diabelli_)

Berried brake and reedy island, Heaven below, and only heaven above, Through the sky’s inverted azure Softly swam the boat that bore our love. Bright were your eyes as the day; Bright ran the stream, Bright hung the sky above. Days of April, airs of Eden, How the glory died through golden hours, 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 again in winter evens When on firelight dreaming fancy feeds, In those ears of agèd lovers Love’s own river warbles in the reeds. Love still the past, O my love! We have lived of yore, O, we have loved of yore.

XIII—MATER TRIUMPHANS

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 ten fingers and toes, and the shell-like nail on each, The eyes blind as gems and the tongue attempting speech; Impotent hands in my bosom, and yet they shall wield the sword! 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. Still they are carolled and said— On wings they are carried— After the singer is dead And the maker buried.

Low as the singer lies 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; And when even dies, the million-tinted, And the night has come, and planets glinted, Lo, the valley hollow Lamp-bestarred!

O to dream, O to awake and wander There, and with delight to take and render, Through the trance of silence, Quiet breath; Lo! for there, among the flowers and grasses, Only the mightier movement sounds and passes; Only winds and rivers, 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; Song, tuneful song, built a palace in the wild. Now, when day dawns on the brow of the moorland, Lone stands the house, and the chimney-stone is cold. Lone let it stand, now the friends are all departed, The kind hearts, the true hearts, that loved the place of old.

Spring shall come, come again, calling up the moorfowl, Spring shall bring the sun and rain, bring the bees and flowers; Red shall the heather bloom over hill and valley, Soft flow the stream through the even-flowing hours; Fair the day shine as it shone on my childhood— Fair shine the day on the house with open door; Birds come and cry there and twitter in the chimney— But I go for ever and come again no more.

XVII—WINTER

In rigorous hours, when down the iron lane The redbreast looks in vain For hips and haws, Lo, shining flowers upon my window-pane The silver pencil of the winter draws.

When all the snowy hill And the bare woods are still; When snipes are silent in the frozen bogs, And all the garden garth is whelmed in mire, Lo, by the hearth, the laughter of the logs— More fair than roses, lo, the flowers of fire!

_Saranac Lake_.

XVIII

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! Blow, blow,’ I cry, ‘my love is home again!’

Yon ship you chase perchance but yesternight Bore still the precious freight of my delight, That here in sheltered house With fire-ypainted walls, Now hears the wind abroad, Now harks the calling squalls. ‘Blow, blow,’ I cry, ‘in vain you rouse the sea, My rescued sailor shares the fire with me!’

XIX—TO DR. HAKE (_On receiving a Copy of Verses_)

In the belovèd 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.

Thus on my pipe I breathed a strain or two; It scarce was music, but ’twas all I knew. It was not music, for I lacked the art, Yet what but frozen music filled my heart?

_Chirp_, _chirp_, I went, nor hoped a nobler strain; But Heaven decreed I should not pipe in vain, For, lo! not far from there, in secret dale, All silent, sat an ancient nightingale. My sparrow notes he heard; thereat awoke; 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. So thought I, and was sorrowful at heart.

Since then my steps have visited that flood 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.

For thee, for us, the sacred river waits, For me, the unworthy, thee, the perfect friend; There Blame desists, there his unfaltering dogs He from the chase recalls, and homeward rides; Yet Praise and Love pass over and go in. So when, beside that margin, I discard My more than mortal weakness, and with thee Through that still land unfearing I advance: If then at all we keep the touch of joy Thou shalt rejoice to find me altered—I, O Felix, to behold thee still unchanged.

XXI

The morning drum-call on my eager ear Thrills unforgotten yet; the morning dew Lies yet undried along my field of noon.

But now I pause at whiles in what I do, And count the bell, and tremble lest I hear (My work untrimmed) the sunset gun too soon.

XXII

I have trod the upward and the downward slope; I have endured and done in days before; I have longed for all, and bid farewell to hope; And I have lived and loved, and closed the door.

XXIII

He hears with gladdened heart the thunder Peal, and loves the falling dew; He knows the earth above and under— Sits and is content to view.

He sits beside the dying ember, God for hope and man for friend, Content to see, glad to remember, Expectant of the certain end.

XXIV

Farewell, fair day and fading light! The clay-born here, with westward sight, 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!

Farewell, fair day. If any God At all consider this poor clod, He who the fair occasion sent Prepared and placed the impediment.

Let him diviner vengeance take— Give me to sleep, give me to wake Girded and shod, and bid me play The hero in the coming day!

XXV—IF THIS WERE FAITH

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, Nut in the husk, Nor dawn beyond the dusk, Nor life beyond death: God, if this were faith?

Having felt thy wind in my face Spit sorrow and disgrace, Having seen thine evil doom In Golgotha and Khartoum, And the brutes, the work of thine hands, Fill with injustice lands And stain with blood the sea: If still in my veins the glee Of the black night and the sun And the lost battle, run: If, an adept, The iniquitous lists I still accept With joy, and joy to endure and be withstood, And still to battle and perish for a dream of good: God, if that were enough?

If to feel, in the ink of the slough, And the sink of the mire, Veins of glory and fire Run through and transpierce and transpire, And a secret purpose of glory in every part, 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?

XXVI—MY WIFE

Trusty, dusky, vivid, true, With eyes of gold and bramble-dew, Steel-true and blade-straight, The great artificer Made my mate.

Honour, anger, valour, fire; A love that life could never tire, Death quench or evil stir, The mighty master Gave to her.

Teacher, tender, comrade, wife, A fellow-farer true through life, Heart-whole and soul-free The august father Gave to me.

XXVII—TO THE MUSE

Resign the rhapsody, the dream, To men of larger reach; Be ours the quest of a plain theme, The piety of speech.

As monkish scribes from morning break Toiled till the close of light, Nor thought a day too long to make One line or letter bright:

We also with an ardent mind, Time, wealth, and fame forgot, Our glory in our patience find And skim, and skim the pot:

Till last, when round the house we hear The evensong of birds, One corner of blue heaven appear In our clear well of words.

Leave, leave it then, muse of my heart! Sans finish and sans frame, Leave unadorned by needless art The picture as it came.

XXVIII—TO AN ISLAND PRINCESS

Since long ago, a child at home, I read and longed to rise and roam, Where’er I went, whate’er I willed, One promised land my fancy filled. Hence the long roads my home I made; Tossed much in ships; have often laid Below the uncurtained sky my head, Rain-deluged and wind-buffeted: And many a thousand hills I crossed And corners turned—Love’s labour lost, Till, Lady, to your isle of sun I came, not hoping; and, like one Snatched out of blindness, rubbed my eyes, And hailed my promised land with cries.

Yes, Lady, here I was at last; Here found I all I had forecast: The long roll of the sapphire sea That keeps the land’s virginity; The stalwart giants of the wood Laden with toys and flowers and food; The precious forest pouring out To compass the whole town about; The town itself with streets of lawn, Loved of the moon, blessed by the dawn, Where the brown children all the day Keep up a ceaseless noise of play, Play in the sun, play in the rain, Nor ever quarrel or complain;— And late at night, in the woods of fruit, Hark! do you hear the passing flute?

I threw one look to either hand, And knew I was in Fairyland. And yet one point of being so I lacked. For, Lady (as you know), Whoever by his might of hand, Won entrance into Fairyland, Found always with admiring eyes A Fairy princess kind and wise. It was not long I waited; soon Upon my threshold, in broad noon, Gracious and helpful, wise and good, The Fairy Princess Moë stood. {44}

_Tantira_, _Tahiti_, _Nov._ 5, 1888.

XXIX—TO KALAKAUA (_With a present of a Pearl_)