Complete Works of Robert Louis Stevenson (Illustrated) (512 page)

Begin to change my song.

Now I know right from wrong,

Now I know
pay
and
pray
,

I who was young so long,

Young and alert and gay.

Now I follow the throng,

Walk in the beaten way,

Hear what the elders say,

And own that I was wrong —

I who was young so long.

.

III

EPISTLE TO CHARLES BAXTER

Noo lyart leaves blaw ower the green,

Red are the bonny woods o’ Dean,

An’ here we’re back in Embro, freen’,

To pass the winter.

Whilk noo, wi’ frosts afore, draws in,

An’ snaws ahint her.

I’ve seen ‘s hae days to fricht us a’,

The Pentlands poothered weel wi’ snaw,

The ways half-smoored wi’ liquid thaw,

An’ half-congealin’,

The snell an’ scowtherin’ norther blaw

Frae blae Brunteelan’.

I’ve seen ‘s been unco sweir to sally,

And at the door-cheeks daff an’ dally,

Seen ‘s daidle thus an’ shilly-shally

For near a minute —

Sae cauld the wind blew up the valley,

The deil was in it! —

Syne spread the silk an’ tak the gate,

In blast an’ blaudin’, rain, deil hae ‘t!

The hale toon glintin’, stane an’ slate,

Wi’ cauld an’ weet,

An’ to the Court, gin we ‘se be late,

Bicker oor feet.

And at the Court, tae, aft I saw

Whaur Advocates by twa an’ twa

Gang gesterin’ end to end the ha’

In weeg an’ goon,

To crack o’ what ye wull but Law

The hale forenoon.

That muckle ha’, maist like a kirk,

I’ve kent at braid mid-day sae mirk

Ye’d seen white weegs an’ faces lurk

Like ghaists frae Hell,

But whether Christian ghaists or Turk,

Deil ane could tell.

The three fires lunted in the gloom,

The wind blew like the blast o’ doom,

The rain upo’ the roof abune

Played Peter Dick —

Ye wad nae’d licht enough i’ the room

Your teeth to pick!

But, freend, ye ken how me an’ you,

The ling-lang lanely winter through,

Keep’d a guid speerit up, an’ true

To lore Horatian,

We aye the ither bottle drew

To inclination.

Sae let us in the comin’ days

Stand sicker on our auncient ways —

The strauchtest road in a’ the maze

Since Eve ate apples;

An’ let the winter weet our cla’es —

We’ll weet oor thrapples.

Edinburgh,
October
.

IV

THE SUSQUEHANNAH AND THE DELAWARE

Of where or how, I nothing know;

And why, I do not care;

Enough if, even so,

My travelling eyes, my travelling mind can go

By flood and field and hill, by wood and meadow fair,

Beside the Susquehannah and along the Delaware.

I think, I hope, I dream no more

The dreams of otherwhere,

The cherished thoughts of yore;

I have been changed from what I was before;

And drunk too deep perchance the lotus of the air,

Beside the Susquehannah and along the Delaware.

Unweary, God me yet shall bring

To lands of brighter air,

Where I, now half a king,

Shall with enfranchised spirit loudlier sing,

And wear a bolder front than that which now I wear

Beside the Susquehannah and along the Delaware.

August
.

V

EPISTLE TO ALBERT DEW-SMITH

Figure me to yourself, I pray —

A man of my peculiar cut —

Apart from dancing and deray,

Into an Alpine valley shut;

Shut in a kind of damned Hotel,

Discountenanced by God and man;

The food? — Sir, you would do as well

To cram your belly full of bran.

The company? Alas, the day

That I should dwell with such a crew,

With devil anything to say,

Nor any one to say it to!

The place? Although they call it Platz,

I will be bold and state my view;

It’s not a place at all — and that’s

The bottom verity, my Dew.

There are, as I will not deny,

Innumerable inns; a road;

Several Alps indifferent high;

The snow’s inviolable abode;

Eleven English parsons, all

Entirely inoffensive; four

True human beings — what I call

Human — the deuce a cipher more;

A climate of surprising worth;

Innumerable dogs that bark;

Some air, some weather, and some earth;

A native race — God save the mark! —

A race that works, yet cannot work,

Yodels, but cannot yodel right,

Such as, unhelp’d, with rusty dirk,

I vow that I could wholly smite.

A river that from morn to night

Down all the valley plays the fool;

Not once she pauses in her flight,

Nor knows the comfort of a pool;

But still keeps up, by straight or bend,

The selfsame pace she hath begun —

Still hurry, hurry, to the end —

Good God, is that the way to run?

If I a river were, I hope

That I should better realise

The opportunities and scope

Of that romantic enterprise.

I should not ape the merely strange,

But aim besides at the divine;

And continuity and change

I still should labour to combine.

Here should I gallop down the race,

Here charge the sterling like a bull;

There, as a man might wipe his face,

Lie, pleased and panting, in a pool.

But what, my Dew, in idle mood,

What prate I, minding not my debt?

What do I talk of bad or good?

The best is still a cigarette.

Me whether evil fate assault,

Or smiling providences crown —

Whether on high the eternal vault

Be blue, or crash with thunder down —

I judge the best, whate’er befall,

Is still to sit on one’s behind,

And, having duly moistened all,

Smoke with an unperturbed mind.

Davos,
November
.

 “The whole front of the house was lighted, and there were pipes and fiddles, and as much dancing and deray within as used to be in Sir Robert’s house at Pace and Yule, and such high seasons.” — See “Wandering Willie’s Tale” in “Redgauntlet,” borrowed perhaps from “Christ’s Kirk of the Green.”

 In architecture, a series of piles to defend the pier of a bridge.

VI

ALCAICS TO HORATIO F. BROWN

Brave lads in olden musical centuries,

Sang, night by night, adorable choruses,

Sat late by alehouse doors in April

Chaunting in joy as the moon was rising:

Moon-seen and merry, under the trellises,

Flush-faced they played with old polysyllables;

Spring scents inspired, old wine diluted;

Love and Apollo were there to chorus.

Now these, the songs, remain to eternity,

Those, only those, the bountiful choristers

Gone — those are gone, those unremembered

Sleep and are silent in earth for ever.

So man himself appears and evanishes,

So smiles and goes; as wanderers halting at

Some green-embowered house, play their music,

Play and are gone on the windy highway;

Yet dwells the strain enshrined in the memory

Long after they departed eternally,

Forth-faring tow’rd far mountain summits,

Cities of men on the sounding Ocean.

Youth sang the song in years immemorial;

Brave chanticleer, he sang and was beautiful;

Bird-haunted, green tree-tops in springtime

Heard and were pleased by the voice of singing;

Youth goes, and leaves behind him a prodigy —

Songs sent by thee afar from Venetian

Sea-grey lagunes, sea-paven highways,

Dear to me here in my Alpine exile.

Davos,
Spring
.

VII

A LYTLE JAPE OF TUSHERIE

By A. Tusher

The pleasant river gushes

Among the meadows green;

At home the author tushes;

For him it flows unseen.

The Birds among the Bushes

May wanton on the spray;

But vain for him who tushes

The brightness of the day!

The frog among the rushes

Sits singing in the blue.

By ‘r la’kin! but these tushes

Are wearisome to do!

The task entirely crushes

The spirit of the bard:

God pity him who tushes —

His task is very hard.

The filthy gutter slushes,

The clouds are full of rain,

But doomed is he who tushes

To tush and tush again.

At morn with his hair-brushes,

Still “tush” he says and weeps;

At night again he tushes,

And tushes till he sleeps.

And when at length he pushes

Beyond the river dark —

‘Las, to the man who tushes,

“Tush” shall be God’s remark!

Hyères,
May
.

VIII

TO VIRGIL AND DORA WILLIAMS

Here, from the forelands of the tideless sea,

Behold and take my offering unadorned.

In the Pacific air it sprang; it grew

Among the silence of the Alpine air;

In Scottish heather blossomed; and at last

By that unshapen sapphire, in whose face

Spain, Italy, France, Algiers, and Tunis view

Their introverted mountains, came to fruit.

Back now, my Booklet! on the diving ship,

And posting on the rails, to home return, —

Home, and the friends whose honouring name you bear.

Hyères, .

IX

BURLESQUE SONNET

TO ÆNEAS WILLIAM MACKINTOSH

Thee, Mackintosh, artificer of light,

Thee, the lone smoker hails! the student, thee;

Thee, oft upon the ungovernable sea,

The seaman, conscious of approaching night;

Thou, with industrious fingers, hast outright

Mastered that art, of other arts the key,

That bids thick night before the morning flee,

And lingering day retains for mortal sight.

O Promethean workman, thee I hail,

Thee hallowed, thee unparalleled, thee bold

To affront the reign of sleep and darkness old,

Thee William, thee Æneas, thee I sing;

Thee by the glimmering taper clear and pale,

Of light, and light’s purveyance, hail, the king.

X

THE FINE PACIFIC ISLANDS

(HEARD IN A PUBLIC-HOUSE AT ROTHERHITHE)

The jolly English Yellowboy

Is a ‘ansome coin when new,

The Yankee Double-eagle

Is large enough for two.

O, these may do for seaport towns,

For cities these may do;

But the dibbs that takes the Hislands

Are the dollars of Peru:

O, the fine Pacific Hislands,

O, the dollars of Peru!

It’s there we buy the cocoanuts

Mast ‘eaded in the blue;

It’s there we trap the lasses

All waiting for the crew;

It’s there we buy the trader’s rum

What bores a seaman through....

In the fine Pacific Hislands

With the dollars of Peru:

In the fine Pacific Hislands

With the dollars of Peru!

Now, messmates, when my watch is up,

And I am quite broached to,

I’ll give a tip to ‘Evving

Of the ‘ansome thing to do:

Let ‘em just refit this sailor-man

And launch him off anew

To cruise among the Hislands

With the dollars of Peru:

In the fine Pacific Hislands

With the dollars of Peru!

Tahiti,
August
.

XI

AULD REEKIE

When chitterin’ cauld the day sall daw,

Loud may your bonny bugles blaw

And loud your drums may beat.

Hie owre the land at evenfa’

Your lamps may glitter raw by raw,

Along the gowsty street.

I gang nae mair where ance I gaed,

By Brunston, Fairmileheid, or Braid;

But far frae Kirk and Tron.

O still ayont the muckle sea,

Still are ye dear, and dear to me,

Auld Reekie, still and on!

XII

THE LESSON OF THE MASTER

TO HENRY JAMES

Adela, Adela, Adela Chart,

What have you done to my elderly heart?

Of all the ladies of paper and ink

I count you the paragon, call you the pink.

The word of your brother depicts you in part:

“You raving maniac!” Adela Chart;

But in all the asylums that cumber the ground,

So delightful a maniac was ne’er to be found.

I pore on you, dote on you, clasp you to heart,

I laud, love, and laugh at you, Adela Chart,

And thank my dear maker the while I admire

That I can be neither your husband nor sire.

Your husband’s, your sire’s, were a difficult part;

You’re a byway to suicide, Adela Chart;

But to read of, depicted by exquisite James,

O, sure you’re the flower and quintessence of dames.

Vailima,
October
.

XIII

THE CONSECRATION OF BRAILLE

TO MRS. A. BAKER

I was a barren tree before,

I blew a quenchèd coal,

I could not, on their midnight shore,