Complete Works of Robert Louis Stevenson (Illustrated) (508 page)

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 moor-fowl,

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;