Complete Works of Robert Louis Stevenson (Illustrated) (497 page)

His flock come bleating home; the seaman hears

Once more the cordage rattle. Airs of home!

Youth, love, and roses blossom; the gaunt ward

Dislimns and disappears, and, opening out,

Shows brooks and forests, and the blue beyond

Of mountains.

Small the pipe; but O! do thou,

Peak-faced and suffering piper, blow therein

The dirge of heroes dead; and to these sick,

These dying, sound the triumph over death.

Behold! each greatly breathes; each tastes a joy

Unknown before, in dying; for each knows

A hero dies with him — though unfulfilled,

Yet conquering truly — and not dies in vain.

So is pain cheered, death comforted; the house

Of sorrow smiles to listen. Once again —

O thou, Orpheus and Heracles, the bard

And the deliverer, touch the stops again!

XVII

HENRY JAMES

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?

Lo, how these fair immaculate women walk

Behind their jocund maker; and we see

Slighted
De Mauves
, and that far different she,

Gressie
, the trivial sphynx; and to our feast

Daisy
and
Barb
and
Chancellor
(she not least!)

With all their silken, all their airy kin,

Do like unbidden angels enter in.

But he, attended by these shining names,

Comes (best of all) himself — our welcome James.

XVIII

THE MIRROR SPEAKS

Where the bells peal far at sea

Cunning fingers fashioned me.

There on palace walls I hung

While that Consuelo sung;

But I heard, though I listened well,

Never a note, never a trill,

Never a beat of the chiming bell.

There I hung and looked, and there

In my grey face, faces fair

Shone from under shining hair.

Well I saw the poising head,

But the lips moved and nothing said;

And when lights were in the hall,

Silent moved the dancers all.

So a while I glowed, and then

Fell on dusty days and men;

Long I slumbered packed in straw,

Long I none but dealers saw;

Till before my silent eye

One that sees came passing by.

Now with an outlandish grace,

To the sparkling fire I face

In the blue room at Skerryvore;

Where I wait until the door

Open, and the Prince of Men,

Henry James, shall come again.

XIX

KATHARINE

We see you as we see a face

That trembles in a forest place

Upon the mirror of a pool

For ever quiet, clear, and cool;

And, in the wayward glass, appears

To hover between smiles and tears,

Elfin and human, airy and true,

And backed by the reflected blue.

XX

TO F. J. S.

I read, dear friend, in your dear face

Your life’s tale told with perfect grace;

The river of your life I trace

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;

But as some lone, wood-wandering child

Brings home with him at evening mild

The thorns and flowers of all the wild,

From your whole life, O fair and true,

Your flowers and thorns you bring with you!

XXI

REQUIEM

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.

This be the verse you grave for me:

Here he lies where he longed to be;

Home is the sailor, home from sea,

And the hunter home from the hill.

Hyères,
May
.

XXII

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; if morning skies,

Books, and my food, and summer rain

Knocked on my sullen heart in vain: —

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!

XXIII

OUR LADY OF THE SNOWS

Out of the sun, out of the blast,

Out of the world, alone I passed

Across the moor and through the wood

To where the monastery stood.

There neither lute nor breathing fife,

Nor rumour of the world of life,

Nor confidences low and dear,

Shall strike the meditative ear.

Aloof, unhelpful, and unkind,

The prisoners of the iron mind,

Where nothing speaks except the bell,

The unfraternal brothers dwell.

Poor passionate men, still clothed afresh

With agonising folds of flesh;

Whom the clear eyes solicit still

To some bold output of the will,

While fairy Fancy far before

And musing Memory-Hold-the-door

Now to heroic death invite

And now uncurtain fresh delight:

O, little boots it thus to dwell

On the remote unneighboured hill!

O to be up and doing, O

Unfearing and unshamed to go

In all the uproar and the press

About my human business!

My undissuaded heart I hear

Whisper courage in my ear.

With voiceless calls, the ancient earth

Summons me to a daily birth.

Thou, O my love, ye, O my friends —

The gist of life, the end of ends —

To laugh, to love, to live, to die,

Ye call me by the ear and eye!

Forth from the casemate, on the plain

Where honour has the world to gain,

Pour forth and bravely do your part,

O knights of the unshielded heart!

Forth and for ever forward! — out

From prudent turret and redoubt,

And in the mellay charge amain,

To fall but yet to rise again!

Captive? ah, still, to honour bright,

A captive soldier of the right!

Or free and fighting, good with ill?

Unconquering but unconquered still!

And ye, O brethren, what if God,

When from Heav’n’s top He spies abroad,

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;

The plough, the spear, the laden barks,

The field, the founded city, marks;

He marks the smiler of the streets,

The singer upon garden seats;

He sees the climber in the rocks:

To Him, the shepherd folds his flocks.

For those He loves that underprop

With daily virtues Heaven’s top,

And bear the falling sky with ease,

Unfrowning caryatides.

Those He approves that ply the trade,

That rock the child, that wed the maid,

That with weak virtues, weaker hands,

Sow gladness on the peopled lands.

And still with laughter, song and shout,

Spin the great wheel of earth about.

But ye? — O ye who linger still

Here in your fortress on the hill,

With placid face, with tranquil breath,

The unsought volunteers of death,

Our cheerful General on high

With careless looks may pass you by.

XXIV

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 a while depart.

Freedom is far, rest far. Thou art with life

Too closely woven, nerve with nerve entwined;

Service still craving service, love for love,

Love for dear love, still suppliant with tears.

Alas, not yet thy human task is done!

A bond at birth is forged; a debt doth lie

Immortal on mortality. It grows —

By vast rebound it grows, unceasing growth;

Gift upon gift, alms upon alms, upreared,

From man, from God, from nature, till the soul

At that so huge indulgence stands amazed.

Leave not, my soul, the unfoughten field, nor leave

Thy debts dishonoured, nor thy place desert

Without due service rendered. For thy life,

Up, spirit, and defend that fort of clay,

Thy body, now beleaguered; whether soon

Or late she fall; whether to-day thy friends

Bewail thee dead, or, after years, a man

Grown old in honour and the friend of peace.

Contend, my soul, for moments and for hours;

Each is with service pregnant; each reclaimed

Is as a kingdom conquered, where to reign.

As when a captain rallies to the fight

His scattered legions, and beats ruin back,

He, on the field, encamps, well pleased in mind.

Yet surely him shall fortune overtake,

Him smite in turn, headlong his ensigns drive;

And that dear land, now safe, to-morrow fall.

But he, unthinking, in the present good

Solely delights, and all the camps rejoice.

XXV

It is not yours, O mother, to complain,

Not, mother, yours to weep,

Though nevermore your son again

Shall to your bosom creep,

Though nevermore again you watch your baby sleep.

Though in the greener paths of earth,

Mother and child, no more

We wander; and no more the birth

Of me whom once you bore

Seems still the brave reward that once it seemed of yore;

Though as all passes, day and night,

The seasons and the years,

From you, O mother, this delight,

This also disappears —

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.

So from the hearth the children flee,

By that almighty hand

Austerely led; so one by sea

Goes forth, and one by land;

Nor aught of all man’s sons escapes from that command.

So from the sally each obeys

The unseen almighty nod;

So till the ending all their ways

Blindfolded loth have trod:

Nor knew their task at all, but were the tools of God.

And as the fervent smith of yore

Beat out the glowing blade,

Nor wielded in the front of war

The weapons that he made,

But in the tower at home still plied his ringing trade;

So like a sword the son shall roam

On nobler missions sent;

And as the smith remained at home

In peaceful turret pent,

So sits the while at home the mother well content.

XXVI

THE SICK CHILD

CHILD

O Mother, lay your hand on my brow!

O mother, mother, where am I now?

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.

CHILD

Mother, mother, speak low in my ear,

Some of the things are so great and near,

Some are so small and far away,

I have a fear that I cannot say.

What have I done, and what do I fear,

And why are you crying, mother dear?

MOTHER

Out in the city, sounds begin,

Thank the kind God, the carts come in!

An hour or two more, and God is so kind,

The day shall be blue in the window-blind,

Then shall my child go sweetly asleep,

And dream of the birds and the hills of sheep.

XXVII

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.

Doomed to know not Winter, only Spring, a being

Trod the flowery April blithely for a while,

Took his fill of music, joy of thought and seeing,

Came and stayed and went, nor ever ceased to smile.

Came and stayed and went, and now when all is finished,

You alone have crossed the melancholy stream,

Yours the pang, but his, O his, the undiminished

Undecaying gladness, undeparted dream.

All that life contains of torture, toil, and treason,