The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson – Swanston Edition. Volume 14

III

THE PLACE OF THE NAME

There fell a war in a woody place,Lay far across the sea,A war of the march in the mirk midnightAnd the shot from behind the tree,The shaven head and the painted face,The silent foot in the wood,In the land of a strange, outlandish tongueThat was hard to be understood.It fell about the gloaming,The general stood with his staff,He stood and he looked east and westWith little mind to laugh.“Far have I been, and much have I seen,And kennt both gain and loss,But here we have woods on every handAnd a kittle water to cross.Far have I been, and much have I seen,But never the beat of this;And there’s one must go down to that water-sideTo see how deep it is.”It fell in the dusk of the nightWhen unco things betide,The skilly captain, the Cameron,Went down to that waterside.Canny and soft the captain went;And a man of the woody land,With the shaven head and the painted face,Went down at his right hand.It fell in the quiet night,There was never a sound to ken;But all of the woods to the right and the leftLay filled with the painted men.“Far have I been, and much have I seen,Both as a man and boy,But never have I set forth a foot,On so perilous an employ.”It fell in the dusk of the nightWhen unco things betide,That he was aware of a captain-manDrew near to the water-side.He was aware of his comingDown in the gloaming alone;And he looked in the face of the man,And lo! the face was his own.“This is my weird,” he said,“And now I ken the worst;For many shall fall the morn,But I shall fall with the first.O, you of the outland tongue,You of the painted face,This is the place of my death;Can you tell me the name of the place?”“Since the Frenchmen have been hereThey have called it Sault-Marie;But that is a name for priests,And not for you and me.It went by another word,”Quoth he of the shaven head:“It was called TiconderogaIn the days of the great dead.”And it fell on the morrow’s morning,In the fiercest of the fight,That the Cameron bit the dustAs he foretold at night;And far from the hills of heather,Far from the isles of the sea,He sleeps in the place of the nameAs it was doomed to be.

HEATHER ALE

A GALLOWAY LEGEND

From the bonny bells of heatherThey brewed a drink long-syne,Was sweeter far than honey,Was stronger far than wine.They brewed it and they drank it,And lay in a blessed swoundFor days and days togetherIn their dwellings underground.There rose a king in Scotland,A fell man to his foes,He smote the Picts in battle,He hunted them like roes.Over miles of the red mountainHe hunted as they fled,And strewed the dwarfish bodiesOf the dying and the dead.Summer came in the country,Red was the heather bell;But the manner of the brewingWas none alive to tell.In the graves that were like children’sOn many a mountain head,The Brewsters of the HeatherLay numbered with the dead.The king in the red moorlandRode on a summer’s day;And the bees hummed, and the curlewsCried beside the way.The king rode, and was angry,Black was his brow and pale,To rule in a land of heatherAnd lack the Heather Ale.It fortuned that his vassals,Riding free on the heath,Came on a stone that was fallenAnd vermin hid beneath.Rudely plucked from their hiding,Never a word they spoke:A son and his aged father —Last of the dwarfish folk.The king sat high on his charger,He looked on the little men;And the dwarfish and swarthy coupleLooked at the king again.Down by the shore he had them;And there on the giddy brink —“I will give you life, ye vermin,For the secret of the drink.”There stood the son and father;And they looked high and low;The heather was red around them,The sea rumbled below.And up and spoke the father,Shrill was his voice to hear:“I have a word in private,A word for the royal ear.“Life is dear to the aged,And honour a little thing;I would gladly sell the secret,”Quoth the Pict to the king.His voice was small as a sparrow’s,And shrill and wonderful clear;“I would gladly sell my secret,Only my son I fear.“For life is a little matter,And death is nought to the young;And I dare not sell my honourUnder the eye of my son.Take him, O king, and bind him,And cast him far in the deep:And it’s I will tell the secret,That I have sworn to keep.”They took the son and bound him,Neck and heels in a thong,And a lad took him and swung him,And flung him far and strong,And the sea swallowed his body,Like that of a child of ten; —And there on the cliff stood the father,Last of the dwarfish men.“True was the word I told you:Only my son I feared;For I doubt the sapling courageThat goes without the beard.But now in vain is the torture,Fire shall never avail;Here dies in my bosomThe secret of Heather Ale.”

CHRISTMAS AT SEA

The sheets were frozen hard, and they cut the naked hand;The decks were like a slide, where a seaman scarce could stand;The wind was a nor’-wester, blowing squally off the sea;And cliffs and spouting breakers were the only things a-lee.They heard the surf a-roaring before the break of day;But ’twas only with the peep of light we saw how ill we lay.We tumbled every hand on deck instanter, with a shout,And we gave her the maintops’l, and stood by to go about.All day we tacked and tacked between the South Head and the North;All day we hauled the frozen sheets, and got no further forth;All day as cold as charity, in bitter pain and dread,For very life and nature we tacked from head to head.We gave the South a wider berth, for there the tide-race roared;But every tack we made we brought the North Head close aboard:So’s we saw the cliffs and houses, and the breakers running high,And the coastguard in his garden, with his glass against his eye.The frost was on the village roofs as white as ocean foam;The good red fires were burning bright in every ’long-shore home;The windows sparkled clear, and the chimneys volleyed out;And I vow we sniffed the victuals as the vessel went about.The bells upon the church were rung with a mighty jovial cheer;For it’s just that I should tell you how (of all days in the year)This day of our adversity was blessèd Christmas morn,And the house above the coastguard’s was the house where I was born.O well I saw the pleasant room, the pleasant faces there,My mother’s silver spectacles, my father’s silver hair;And well I saw the firelight, like a flight of homely elves,Go dancing round the china-plates that stand upon the shelves.And well I knew the talk they had, the talk that was of me,Of the shadow on the household and the son that went to sea;And O the wicked fool I seemed, in every kind of way,To be here and hauling frozen ropes on blessèd Christmas Day.They lit the high sea-light, and the dark began to fall.“All hands to loose topgallant sails,” I heard the captain call.“By the Lord, she’ll never stand it,” our first mate, Jackson, cried.… “It’s the one way or the other, Mr. Jackson,” he replied.She staggered to her bearings, but the sails were new and good,And the ship smelt up to windward just as though she understood,As the winter’s day was ending, in the entry of the night,We cleared the weary headland, and passed below the light.And they heaved a mighty breath, every soul on board but me,As they saw her nose again pointing handsome out to sea;But all that I could think of, in the darkness and the cold,Was just that I was leaving home and my folks were growing old.

NOTES TO THE SONG OF RAHÉRO

Introduction. – This tale, of which I have not consciously changed a single feature, I received from tradition. It is highly popular through all the country of the eight Tevas, the clan to which Rahéro belonged; and particularly in Taiárapu, the windward peninsula of Tahiti, where he lived. I have heard from end to end two versions; and as many as five different persons have helped me with details. There seems no reason why the tale should not be true.

NOTES TO THE FEAST OF FAMINE

In this ballad I have strung together some of the more striking particularities of the Marquesas. It rests upon no authority; it is in no sense, like “Rahéro,” a native story; but a patchwork of details of manners and the impressions of a traveller. It may seem strange, when the scene is laid upon these profligate islands, to make the story hinge on love. But love is not less known in the Marquesas than elsewhere; nor is there any cause of suicide more common in the islands.

NOTES TO TICONDEROGA

Introduction. – I first heard this legend of my own country from that friend of men of letters, Mr. Alfred Nutt, “there in roaring London’s central stream,” and since the ballad first saw the light of day in Scribner’s Magazine, Mr. Nutt and Lord Archibald Campbell have been in public controversy on the facts. Two clans, the Camerons and the Campbells, lay claim to this bracing story; and they do well: the man who preferred his plighted troth to the commands and menaces of the dead is an ancestor worth disputing. But the Campbells must rest content: they have the broad lands and the broad page of history; this appanage must be denied them; for between the name of Cameron and that of Campbell the muse will never hesitate.

NOTE TO HEATHER ALE

Among the curiosities of human nature this legend claims a high place. It is needless to remind the reader that the Picts were never exterminated, and form to this day a large proportion of the folk of Scotland, occupying the eastern and the central parts, from the Firth of Forth, or perhaps the Lammermoors, upon the south, to the Ord of Caithness on the north. That the blundering guess of a dull chronicler should have inspired men with imaginary loathing for their own ancestors is already strange; that it should have begotten this wild legend seems incredible. Is it possible the chronicler’s error was merely nominal? that what he told, and what the people proved themselves so ready to receive, about the Picts, was true or partly true of some anterior and perhaps Lappish savages, small of stature, black of hue, dwelling underground – possibly also the distillers of some forgotten spirit? See Mr. Campbell’s “Tales of the West Highlands.”

SONGS OF TRAVEL AND OTHER VERSES

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 aboveAnd 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 aroundAnd the road before me.Wealth I seek not, hope nor love,Nor a friend to know me;All I seek, the heaven aboveAnd the road below me.Or let autumn fall on meWhere 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 aboveAnd the road below me.

II

YOUTH AND LOVE – I

Once only by the garden gateOur lips were joined and parted.I must fulfil an empty fateAnd travel the uncharted.Hail and farewell! I must arise,Leave here the fatted cattle,And paint on foreign lands and skiesMy Odyssey of battle.The untented Kosmos my abode,I pass, a wilful stranger:My mistress still the open roadAnd the bright eyes of danger.Come ill or well, the cross, the crown,The rainbow or the thunder,I fling my soul and body downFor 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 landCall 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 fateFares; 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 standAs heretofore:The unremembered tokens in your handAvail no more.No more the morning glow, no more the grace,Enshrines, endears.Cold beats the light of time upon your faceAnd shows your tears.He came and went. Perchance you wept a whileAnd then forgot.Ah, me! but he that left you with a smileForgets 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 brownAs I recall the blue?

VI

The infinite shining heavensRose and I saw in the nightUncountable angel starsShowering sorrow and light.I saw them distant as heaven,Dumb and shining and dead,And the idle stars of the nightWere dearer to me than bread.Night after night in my sorrowThe stars stood over the sea,Till lo! I looked in the duskAnd a star had come down to me.

VII

Plain as the glistering planets shineWhen winds have cleaned the skies,Her love appeared, appealed for mineAnd wantoned in her eyes.Clear as the shining tapers burnedOn Cytherea’s shrine,Those brimming, lustrous beauties turned,And called and conquered mine.The beacon-lamp that Hero litNo 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 earLike sudden drums at night.I ran as, at the cannon’s roar,The troops the ramparts man —As in the holy house of yoreThe willing Eli ran.Here, lady, lo! that servant standsYou picked from passing men,And should you need nor heart nor handsHe bows and goes again.

VIII

To you, let snow and rosesAnd golden locks belong.These are the world’s enslavers,Let these delight the throng.For her of duskier lustreWhose favour still I wear,The snow be in her kirtle,The rose be in her hair!The hue of highland riversCareering, 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 awakeFor Beauty’s sakeIn the hour when the birds awake in the brakeAnd 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 endWhen the shades ascend,Let her wake to the kiss of a tender friendTo 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 starIn all our heaven of sky.Our lives, and every day and hour,One symphony appear:One road, one garden – every flowerAnd every bramble dear.

XI

I will make you brooches and toys for your delightOf bird-song at morning and star-shine at night.I will make a palace fit for you and meOf 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 whiteIn 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 azureSoftly 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 fagotJoan 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 evensWhen on firelight dreaming fancy feeds,In those ears of agèd loversLove’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 wordsWhen the right man rings them,Fair the fall of songsWhen the singer sings them.Still they are carolled and said —On wings they are carried —After the singer is deadAnd the maker buried.Low as the singer liesIn the field of heather,Songs of his fashion bringThe swains together.And when the west is redWith the sunset embers,The lover lingers and singsAnd the maid remembers.

XV

In the highlands, in the country places,Where the old plain men have rosy faces,And the young fair maidensQuiet eyes;Where essential silence cheers and blesses,And for ever in the hill-recessesHer more lovely musicBroods and dies.O to mount again where erst I haunted;Where the old red hills are bird-enchanted,And the low green meadowsBright with sward;And when even dies, the million-tinted,And the night has come, and planets glinted,Lo, the valley hollowLamp-bestarred!O to dream, O to awake and wanderThere, 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 laneThe redbreast looks in vainFor hips and haws,Lo, shining flowers upon my window-paneThe silver pencil of the winter draws.When all the snowy hillAnd 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 houseWith 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 yesternightBore still the precious freight of my delight,That here in sheltered houseWith 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 kingsWho 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-wheelsRuns ever panting, nor attains the goal.So thought I, and was sorrowful at heart.Since then my steps have visited that floodAlong whose shore the numerous footfalls cease,The voices and the tears of life expire.Thither the prints go down, the hero’s wayTrod 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 dogsHe from the chase recalls, and homeward rides;Yet Praise and Love pass over and go in.So when, beside that margin, I discardMy more than mortal weakness, and with theeThrough 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 earThrills unforgotten yet; the morning dewLies 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 thunderPeal, 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 sighMy late contemned occasion die.I linger useless in my tent:Farewell, fair day, so foully spent!Farewell, fair day. If any GodAt all consider this poor clod,He who the fair occasion sentPrepared and placed the impediment.Let Him diviner vengeance take —Give me to sleep, give me to wakeGirded and shod, and bid me playThe hero in the coming day!