Songs of Travel, and Other Verses

Robert Louis Stevenson

Songs of Travel, and Other Verses

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.

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 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 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 nightUncountable 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 sakeIn 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 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 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 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 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 —

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