The Project Gutenberg eBook ofUnderwoodsThis ebook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this ebook or online atwww.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this eBook.Title: UnderwoodsAuthor: Robert Louis StevensonRelease date: February 1, 1996 [eBook #438]Most recently updated: January 27, 2013Language: EnglishCredits: Transcribed from the 1989 Chatto & Windus edition by David Price*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK UNDERWOODS ***
This ebook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this ebook or online atwww.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this eBook.
Title: UnderwoodsAuthor: Robert Louis StevensonRelease date: February 1, 1996 [eBook #438]Most recently updated: January 27, 2013Language: EnglishCredits: Transcribed from the 1989 Chatto & Windus edition by David Price
Title: Underwoods
Author: Robert Louis Stevenson
Author: Robert Louis Stevenson
Release date: February 1, 1996 [eBook #438]Most recently updated: January 27, 2013
Language: English
Credits: Transcribed from the 1989 Chatto & Windus edition by David Price
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK UNDERWOODS ***
Transcribed from the 1989 Chatto & Windus edition by David Price, email ccx074@pglaf
BYROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON
Decorative graphic
NINTH EDITION
LONDONCHATTO & WINDUS1898
Of all my verse,like not a single line;But like my title,for it is not mine.That title from a better man I stole:Ah,how much better,had I stol’n the whole!
Thereare men and classes of men that stand above the common herd: the soldier, the sailor and the shepherd not unfrequently; the artist rarely; rarely still, the clergyman; the physician almost as a rule. He is the flower (such as it is) of our civilisation; and when that stage of man is done with, and only remembered to be marvelled at in history, he will be thought to have shared as little as any in the defects of the period, and most notably exhibited the virtues of the race. Generosity he has, such as is possible to those who practise an art, never to those who drive a trade; discretion, tested by a hundred secrets; tact, tried in a thousand embarrassments; and what are more important, Heraclean cheerfulness and courage. So it is that he brings air and cheer into the sickroom, and often enough, though not so often as he wishes, brings healing.
Gratitude is but a lame sentiment; thanks, when they are expressed, are often more embarrassing than welcome; and yet I must set forth mine to a few out of many doctors who have brought me comfort and help: to Dr. Willey of San Francisco, whose kindness to a stranger it must be as grateful to him, as it is touching to me, to remember; to Dr. Karl Ruedi of Davos, the good genius of the English in his frosty mountains; to Dr. Herbert of Paris, whom I knew only for a week, and to Dr. Caissot of Montpellier, whom I knew only for ten days, and who have yet written their names deeply in my memory; to Dr. Brandt of Royat; to Dr. Wakefield of Nice; to Dr. Chepmell, whose visits make it a pleasure to be ill; to Dr. Horace Dobell, so wise in counsel; to Sir Andrew Clark, so unwearied in kindness and to that wise youth, my uncle, Dr. Balfour.
I forget as many as I remember; and I ask both to pardon me, these for silence, those for inadequate speech. But one name I have kept on purpose to the last, because it is a household word with me, and because if I had not received favours from so many hands and in so manyquarters of the world, it should have stood upon this page alone: that of my friend Thomas Bodley Scott of Bournemouth. Will he accept this, although shared among so many, for a dedication to himself? and when next my ill-fortune (which has thus its pleasant side) brings him hurrying to me when he would fain sit down to meat or lie down to rest, will he care to remember that he takes this trouble for one who is not fool enough to be ungrateful?
R. L. S.
Skerryvore,Bournemouth.
Thehuman conscience has fled of late the troublesome domain of conduct for what I should have supposed to be the less congenial field of art: there she may now be said to rage, and with special severity in all that touches dialect; so that in every novel the letters of the alphabet are tortured, and the reader wearied, to commemorate shades of mis-pronunciation. Now spelling is an art of great difficulty in my eyes, and I am inclined to lean upon the printer, even in common practice, rather than to venture abroad upon new quests. And the Scots tongue has an orthography of its own, lacking neither “authority nor author.â€Â Yet the temptation is great to lend a little guidance to the bewildered Englishman. Some simple phonetic artifice might defend your verses from barbarous mishandling, and yet not injure any vested interest. So it seems at first; but there arerocks ahead. Thus, if I wish the diphthongouto have its proper value, I may writeoorinstead ofour; many have done so and lived, and the pillars of the universe remained unshaken. But if I did so, and came presently todoun, which is the classical Scots spelling of the Englishdown, I should begin to feel uneasy; and if I went on a little farther, and came to a classical Scots word, likestourordourorclour, I should know precisely where I was—that is to say, that I was out of sight of land on those high seas of spelling reform in which so many strong swimmers have toiled vainly. To some the situation is exhilarating; as for me, I give one bubbling cry and sink. The compromise at which I have arrived is indefensible, and I have no thought of trying to defend it. As I have stuck for the most part to the proper spelling, I append a table of some common vowel sounds which no one need consult; and just to prove that I belong to my age and have in me the stuff of a reformer, I have used modification marks throughout. Thus I can tell myself, not without pride, that I have added a fresh stumbling-block for English readers, andto a page of print in my native tongue, have lent a new uncouthness.Sed non nobis.
I note again, that among our new dialecticians, the local habitat of every dialect is given to the square mile. I could not emulate this nicety if I desired; for I simply wrote my Scots as well as I was able, not caring if it hailed from Lauderdale or Angus, from the Mearns or Galloway; if I had ever heard a good word, I used it without shame; and when Scots was lacking, or the rhyme jibbed, I was glad (like my betters) to fall back on English. For all that, I own to a friendly feeling for the tongue of Fergusson and of Sir Walter, both Edinburgh men; and I confess that Burns has always sounded in my ear like something partly foreign. And indeed I am from the Lothians myself; it is there I heard the language spoken about my childhood; and it is in the drawling Lothian voice that I repeat it to myself. Let the precisians call my speech that of the Lothians. And if it be not pure, alas! what matters it? The day draws near when this illustrious and malleable tongue shall be quite forgotten; and Burn’s Ayrshire, and Dr. Macdonald’s Aberdeen-awa’,and Scott’s brave, metropolitan utterance will be all equally the ghosts of speech. Till then I would love to have my hour as a native Maker, and be read by my own countryfolk in our own dying language: an ambition surely rather of the heart than of the head, so restricted as it is in prospect of endurance, so parochial in bounds of space.
BOOK I.—In English
BOOK I.—In English
PAGE
I.
Envoy—Go, little book
1
II.
A Song of the Road—The gauger walked
2
III.
The Canoe Speaks—On the great streams
4
IV.
It is the season
7
V.
The House Beautiful—A naked house, a naked moor
9
VI.
A Visit from the Sea—Far from the loud sea beaches
12
VII.
To a Gardener—Friend, in my mountain-side demesne
14
VIII.
To Minnie—A picture frame for you to fill
16
IX.
To K. de M.—A lover of the moorland bare
17
X.
To N. V. de G. S.—The unfathomable sea
19
XI.
To Will. H. Low—Youth now flees
21
XII.
To Mrs. Will. H. Low—Even in the bluest noonday of July
24
XIII.
To H. F. Brown—I sit and wait
26
XIV.
To Andrew Lang—Dear Andrew
29
XV.
Et tu in Arcadia vixisti—In ancient tales, O friend
31
XVI.
To W. E. Henley—The year runs through her phases
36
XVII.
Henry James—Who comes to-night
38
XVIII.
The Mirror Speaks—Where the bells
39
XIX.
Katharine—We see you as we see a face
41
XX.
To F. J. S.—I read, dear friend
42
XXI.
Requiem—Under the wide and starry sky
43
XXII.
The Celestial Surgeon—If I have faltered
44
XXIII.
Our Lady of the Snows—Out of the sun
45
XXIV.
Not yet, my soul
50
XXV.
It is not yours, O mother, to complain
53
XXVI.
The Sick Child—O mother, lay your hand on my brow
56
XXVII.
In Memoriam F. A. S.—Yet, O stricken heart
58
XXVIII.
To my Father—Peace and her huge invasion
60
XXIX.
In the States—With half a heart
62
XXX.
A Portrait—I am a kind of farthing dip
63
XXXI.
Sing clearlier, Muse
65
XXXII.
A Camp—The bed was made
66
XXXIII.
The Country of the Camisards—We travelled in the print of olden wars
67
XXXIV.
Skerryvore—For love of lovely words
68
XXXV.
Skerryvore: The Parallel—Here all is sunny
69
XXXVI.
My house, I say
70
XXXVII.
My body which my dungeon is
71
XXXVIII.
Say not of me that weakly I declined
73
BOOK II.—In Scots
I.
The Maker to Posterity—Far ’yont amang the years to be
77
II.
Ille Terrarum—Frae nirly, nippin’, Eas’lan’ breeze
80
III.
When aince Aprile has fairly come
85
IV.
A Mile an’ a Bittock
87
V.
A Lowden Sabbath Morn—The clinkum-clank o’ Sabbath bells
89
VI.
The Spaewife—O, I wad like to ken
98
VII.
The Blast—1875—It’s rainin’. Weet’s the gairden sod
100
VIII.
The Counterblast—1886—My bonny man, the warld, it’s true
103
IX.
The Counterblast Ironical—It’s strange that God should fash to frame
108
X.
Their Laureate to an Academy Class Dinner Club—Dear Thamson class, whaure’er I gang
110
XI.
Embro Hie Kirk—The Lord Himsel’ in former days
114
XII.
The Scotsman’s Return from Abroad—In mony a foreign pairt I’ve been
118
XIII.
Late in the nicht
125
XIV.
My Conscience!—Of a’ the ills that flesh can fear
130
XV.
To Doctor John Brown—By Lyne and Tyne, by Thames and Tees
133
XVI.
It’s an owercome sooth for age an’ youth
138
Go, little book, and wish to allFlowers in the garden, meat in the hall,A bin of wine, a spice of wit,A house with lawns enclosing it,A living river by the door,A nightingale in the sycamore!
Thegauger walked with willing foot,And aye the gauger played the flute;And what should Master Gauger playButOver the hills and far away?
Whene’er I buckle on my packAnd foot it gaily in the track,O pleasant gauger, long since dead,I hear you fluting on ahead.
You go with me the self-same way—The self-same air for me you play;For I do think and so do youIt is the tune to travel to.
For who would gravely set his faceTo go to this or t’other place?There’s nothing under Heav’n so blueThat’s fairly worth the travelling to.
On every hand the roads begin,And people walk with zeal therein;But wheresoe’er the highways tend,Be sure there’s nothing at the end.
Then follow you, wherever hieThe travelling mountains of the sky.Or let the streams in civil modeDirect your choice upon a road;
For one and all, or high or low,Will lead you where you wish to go;And one and all go night and dayOver the hills and far away!
Forest of Montargis, 1878.
Onthe great streams the ships may goAbout men’s business to and fro.But I, the egg-shell pinnace, sleepOn crystal waters ankle-deep:I, whose diminutive design,Of sweeter cedar, pithier pine,Is fashioned on so frail a mould,A hand may launch, a hand withhold:I, rather, with the leaping troutWind, among lilies, in and out;I, the unnamed, inviolate,Green, rustic rivers, navigate;My dipping paddle scarcely shakesThe berry in the bramble-brakes;Still forth on my green way I wendBeside the cottage garden-end;And by the nested angler fare,And take the lovers unaware.By willow wood and water-wheelSpeedily fleets my touching keel;By all retired and shady spotsWhere prosper dim forget-me-nots;By meadows where at afternoonThe growing maidens troop in JuneTo loose their girdles on the grass.Ah! speedier than before the glassThe backward toilet goes; and swiftAs swallows quiver, robe and shiftAnd the rough country stockings lieAround each young divinity.When, following the recondite brook,Sudden upon this scene I look,And light with unfamiliar faceOn chaste Diana’s bathing-place,Loud ring the hills about and allThe shallows are abandoned. . . .
Itis the season now to goAbout the country high and low,Among the lilacs hand in hand,And two by two in fairy land.
The brooding boy, the sighing maid,Wholly fain and half afraid,Now meet along the hazel’d brookTo pass and linger, pause and look.
A year ago, and blithely paired,Their rough-and-tumble play they shared;They kissed and quarrelled, laughed and cried,A year ago at Eastertide.
With bursting heart, with fiery face,She strove against him in the race;He unabashed her garter saw,That now would touch her skirts with awe.
Now by the stile ablaze she stops,And his demurer eyes he drops;Now they exchange averted sighsOr stand and marry silent eyes.
And he to her a hero isAnd sweeter she than primroses;Their common silence dearer farThan nightingale and mavis are.
Now when they sever wedded hands,Joy trembles in their bosom-strandsAnd lovely laughter leaps and fallsUpon their lips in madrigals.
A naked house,a naked moor,A shivering pool before the door,A garden bare of flowers and fruitAnd poplars at the garden foot:Such is the place that I live in,Bleak without and bare within.
Yet shall your ragged moor receiveThe incomparable pomp of eve,And the cold glories of the dawnBehind your shivering trees be drawn;And when the wind from place to placeDoth the unmoored cloud-galleons chase,Your garden gloom and gleam again,With leaping sun, with glancing rain.Here shall the wizard moon ascendThe heavens, in the crimson endOf day’s declining splendour; hereThe army of the stars appear.The neighbour hollows dry or wet,Spring shall with tender flowers beset;And oft the morning muser seeLarks rising from the broomy lea,And every fairy wheel and threadOf cobweb dew-bediamonded.When daisies go, shall winter timeSilver the simple grass with rime;Autumnal frosts enchant the poolAnd make the cart-ruts beautiful;And when snow-bright the moor expands,How shall your children clap their hands!To make this earth our hermitage,A cheerful and a changeful page,God’s bright and intricate deviceOf days and seasons doth suffice.
Farfrom the loud sea beachesWhere he goes fishing and crying,Here in the inland gardenWhy is the sea-gull flying?
Here are no fish to dive for;Here is the corn and lea;Here are the green trees rustling.Hie away home to sea!
Fresh is the river waterAnd quiet among the rushes;This is no home for the sea-gullBut for the rooks and thrushes.
Pity the bird that has wandered!Pity the sailor ashore!Hurry him home to the ocean,Let him come here no more!
High on the sea-cliff ledgesThe white gulls are trooping and crying,Here among the rooks and roses,Why is the sea-gull flying?
Friend, in my mountain-side demesneMy plain-beholding, rosy, greenAnd linnet-haunted garden-ground,Let still the esculents abound.Let first the onion flourish there,Rose among roots, the maiden-fair,Wine-scented and poetic soulOf the capacious salad bowl.Let thyme the mountaineer (to dressThe tinier birds) and wading cress,The lover of the shallow brook,From all my plots and borders look.
Nor crisp and ruddy radish, norPease-cods for the child’s pinaforeBe lacking; nor of salad clanThe last and least that ever ranAbout great nature’s garden-beds.Nor thence be missed the speary headsOf artichoke; nor thence the beanThat gathered innocent and greenOutsavours the belauded pea.
These tend, I prithee; and for me,Thy most long-suffering master, bringIn April, when the linnets singAnd the days lengthen more and moreAt sundown to the garden door.And I, being provided thus.Shall, with superb asparagus,A book, a taper, and a cupOf country wine, divinely sup.
La Solitude,Hyères.
(With a hand-glass)
Apicture-framefor you to fill,A paltry setting for your face,A thing that has no worth untilYou lend it something of your grace
I send (unhappy I that singLaid by awhile upon the shelf)Because I would not send a thingLess charming than you are yourself.
And happier than I, alas!(Dumb thing, I envy its delight)’Twill wish you well, the looking-glass,And look you in the face to-night.
1869.
Aloverof the moorland bareAnd honest country winds, you were;The silver-skimming rain you took;And loved the floodings of the brook,Dew, frost and mountains, fire and seas,Tumultuary silences,Winds that in darkness fifed a tune,And the high-riding, virgin moon.
And as the berry, pale and sharp,Springs on some ditch’s counterscarpIn our ungenial, native north—You put your frosted wildings forth,And on the heath, afar from man,A strong and bitter virgin ran.
The berry ripened keeps the rudeAnd racy flavour of the wood.And you that loved the empty plainAll redolent of wind and rain,Around you still the curlew sings—The freshness of the weather clings—The maiden jewels of the rainSit in your dabbled locks again.
Theunfathomable sea, and time, and tears,The deeds of heroes and the crimes of kingsDispart us; and the river of eventsHas, for an age of years, to east and westMore widely borne our cradles. Thou to meArt foreign, as when seamen at the dawnDescry a land far off and know not which.So I approach uncertain; so I cruiseRound thy mysterious islet, and beholdSurf and great mountains and loud river-bars,And from the shore hear inland voices call.
Strange is the seaman’s heart; he hopes, he fears;Draws closer and sweeps wider from that coast;Last, his rent sail refits, and to the deepHis shattered prow uncomforted puts back.Yet as he goes he ponders at the helmOf that bright island; where he feared to touch,His spirit readventures; and for years,Where by his wife he slumbers safe at home,Thoughts of that land revisit him; he seesThe eternal mountains beckon, and awakesYearning for that far home that might have been.
Youthnow flees on feathered footFaint and fainter sounds the flute,Rarer songs of gods; and stillSomewhere on the sunny hill,Or along the winding stream,Through the willows, flits a dream;Flits but shows a smiling face,Flees but with so quaint a grace,None can choose to stay at home,All must follow, all must roam.
This is unborn beauty: sheNow in air floats high and free,Takes the sun and breaks the blue;—Late with stooping pinion flewRaking hedgerow trees, and wetHer wing in silver streams, and setShining foot on temple roof:Now again she flies aloof,Coasting mountain clouds and kiss’tBy the evening’s amethyst.
In wet wood and miry lane,Still we pant and pound in vain;Still with leaden foot we chaseWaning pinion, fainting face;Still with gray hair we stumble on,Till, behold, the vision gone!
Where hath fleeting beauty led?To the doorway of the dead.Life is over, life was gay:We have come the primrose way.
Evenin the bluest noonday of July,There could not run the smallest breath of windBut all the quarter sounded like a wood;And in the chequered silence and aboveThe hum of city cabs that sought the Bois,Suburban ashes shivered into song.A patter and a chatter and a chirpAnd a long dying hiss—it was as thoughStarched old brocaded dames through all the houseHad trailed a strident skirt, or the whole skyEven in a wink had over-brimmed in rain.
Hark, in these shady parlours, how it talksOf the near Autumn, how the smitten ashTrembles and augurs floods! O not too longIn these inconstant latitudes delay,O not too late from the unbeloved northTrim your escape! For soon shall this low roofResound indeed with rain, soon shall your eyesSearch the foul garden, search the darkened rooms,Nor find one jewel but the blazing log.
12Rue Vernier,Paris.
(Written during a dangerous sickness.)
Isitand wait a pair of oarsOn cis-Elysian river-shores.Where the immortal dead have sate,’Tis mine to sit and meditate;To re-ascend life’s rivulet,Without remorse, without regret;And sing myAlma GenetrixAmong the willows of the Styx.
And lo, as my serener soulDid these unhappy shores patrol,And wait with an attentive earThe coming of the gondolier,Your fire-surviving roll I took,Your spirited and happy book;[27]Whereon, despite my frowning fate,It did my soul so recreateThat all my fancies fled awayOn a Venetian holiday.
Now, thanks to your triumphant care,Your pages clear as April air,The sails, the bells, the birds, I know,And the far-off Friulan snow;The land and sea, the sun and shade,And the blue even lamp-inlaid.For this, for these, for all, O friend,For your whole book from end to end—For Paron Piero’s muttonham—I your defaulting debtor am.
Perchance, reviving, yet may ITo your sea-paven city hie,And in afelze, some day yetLight at your pipe my cigarette.
DearAndrew, with the brindled hair,Who glory to have thrown in air,High over arm, the trembling reed,By Ale and Kail, by Till and Tweed:An equal craft of hand you showThe pen to guide, the fly to throw:I count you happy starred; for God,When He with inkpot and with rodEndowed you, bade your fortune leadForever by the crooks of Tweed,Forever by the woods of songAnd lands that to the Muse belong;Or if in peopled streets, or inThe abhorred pedantic sanhedrim,It should be yours to wander, stillAirs of the morn, airs of the hill,The plovery Forest and the seasThat break about the Hebrides,Should follow over field and plainAnd find you at the window pane;And you again see hill and peel,And the bright springs gush at your heel.So went the fiat forth, and soGarrulous like a brook you go,With sound of happy mirth and sheenOf daylight—whether by the greenYou fare that moment, or the gray;Whether you dwell in March or May;Or whether treat of reels and rodsOr of the old unhappy gods:Still like a brook your page has shone,And your ink sings of Helicon.
(TO R. A. M. S.)
Inancient tales, O friend, thy spirit dwelt;There, from of old, thy childhood passed; and thereHigh expectation, high delights and deeds,Thy fluttering heart with hope and terror moved.And thou hast heard of yore the Blatant Beast,And Roland’s horn, and that war-scattering shoutOf all-unarmed Achilles, ægis-crownedAnd perilous lands thou sawest, sounding shoresAnd seas and forests drear, island and daleAnd mountain dark. For thou with Tristram rod’stOr Bedevere, in farthest Lyonesse.
Thou hadst a booth in Samarcand, whereatSide-looking Magians trafficked; thence, by night,An Afreet snatched thee, and with wings upboreBeyond the Aral mount; or, hoping gain,Thou, with a jar of money, didst embark,For Balsorah, by sea. But chiefly thouIn that clear air took’st life; in ArcadyThe haunted, land of song; and by the wellsWhere most the gods frequent. There Chiron old,In the Pelethronian antre, taught thee lore:The plants, he taught, and by the shining starsIn forests dim to steer. There hast thou seenImmortal Pan dance secret in a glade,And, dancing, roll his eyes; these, where they fell,Shed glee, and through the congregated oaksA flying horror winged; while all the earthTo the god’s pregnant footing thrilled within.Or whiles, beside the sobbing stream, he breathed,In his clutched pipe unformed and wizard strainsDivine yet brutal; which the forest heard,And thou, with awe; and far upon the plainThe unthinking ploughman started and gave ear.
Now things there are that, upon him who sees,A strong vocation lay; and strains there areThat whoso hears shall hear for evermore.For evermore thou hear’st immortal PanAnd those melodious godheads, ever youngAnd ever quiring, on the mountains old.
What was this earth, child of the gods, to thee?Forth from thy dreamland thou, a dreamer, cam’stAnd in thine ears the olden music rang,And in thy mind the doings of the dead,And those heroic ages long forgot.To a so fallen earth, alas! too late,Alas! in evil days, thy steps return,To list at noon for nightingales, to growA dweller on the beach till Argo comeThat came long since, a lingerer by the poolWhere that desirèd angel bathes no more.
As when the Indian to Dakota comes,Or farthest Idaho, and where he dwelt,He with his clan, a humming city finds;Thereon awhile, amazed, he stares, and thenTo right and leftward, like a questing dog,Seeks first the ancestral altars, then the hearthLong cold with rains, and where old terror lodged,And where the dead. So thee undying Hope,With all her pack, hunts screaming through the years:Here, there, thou fleeëst; but nor here nor thereThe pleasant gods abide, the glory dwells.
That, that was not Apollo, not the god.This was not Venus, though she Venus seemedA moment. And though fair yon river move,She, all the way, from disenchanted fountTo seas unhallowed runs; the gods forsookLong since her trembling rushes; from her plainsDisconsolate, long since adventure fled;And now although the inviting river flows,And every poplared cape, and every bendOr willowy islet, win upon thy soulAnd to thy hopeful shallop whisper speed;Yet hope not thou at all; hope is no more;And O, long since the golden groves are deadThe faery cities vanished from the land!
Theyear runs through her phases; rain and sun,Springtime and summer pass; winter succeeds;But one pale season rules the house of death.Cold falls the imprisoned daylight; fell diseaseBy each lean pallet squats, and pain and sleepToss gaping on the pillows.But O thou!Uprise and take thy pipe. Bid music flow,Strains by good thoughts attended, like the springThe swallows follow over land and sea.Pain sleeps at once; at once, with open eyes,Dozing despair awakes. The shepherd seesHis flock come bleating home; the seaman hearsOnce more the cordage rattle. Airs of home!Youth, love and roses blossom; the gaunt wardDislimns and disappears, and, opening out,Shows brooks and forests, and the blue beyondOf mountains.Small the pipe; but oh! do thou,Peak-faced and suffering piper, blow thereinThe dirge of heroes dead; and to these sick,These dying, sound the triumph over death.Behold! each greatly breathes; each tastes a joyUnknown before, in dying; for each knowsA hero dies with him—though unfulfilled,Yet conquering truly—and not dies in vain
So is pain cheered, death comforted; the houseOf sorrow smiles to listen. Once again—O thou, Orpheus and Heracles, the bardAnd the deliverer, touch the stops again!
Whocomes to-night? We ope the doors in vain.Who comes? My bursting walls, can you containThe presences that now together throngYour narrow entry, as with flowers and song,As with the air of life, the breath of talk?Lo, how these fair immaculate women walkBehind their jocund maker; and we seeSlightedDe Mauves, and that far different she,Gressie, the trivial sphynx; and to our feastDaisyandBarbandChancellor(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.
Wherethe bells peal far at seaCunning fingers fashioned me.There on palace walls I hungWhile 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 thereIn my gray face, faces fairShone 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 awhile I glowed, and thenFell on dusty days and men;Long I slumbered packed in straw,Long I none but dealers saw;Till before my silent eyeOne that sees came passing by.
Now with an outlandish grace,To the sparkling fire I faceIn the blue room at Skerryvore;Where I wait until the doorOpen, and the Prince of Men,Henry James, shall come again.
Wesee you as we see a faceThat trembles in a forest placeUpon the mirror of a poolForever quiet, clear and cool;And in the wayward glass, appearsTo hover between smiles and tears,Elfin and human, airy and true,And backed by the reflected blue.
Iread, dear friend, in your dear faceYour life’s tale told with perfect grace;The river of your life, I traceUp the sun-chequered, devious bedTo 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 painNor sorrow, has gone by in vain;
But as some lone, wood-wandering childBrings home with him at evening mildThe thorns and flowers of all the wild,From your whole life, O fair and trueYour flowers and thorns you bring with you!
Underthe 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.
IfI have faltered more or lessIn my great task of happiness;If I have moved among my raceAnd shown no glorious morning face;If beams from happy human eyesHave moved me not; if morning skies,Books, and my food, and summer rainKnocked on my sullen heart in vain:—Lord, thy most pointed pleasure takeAnd 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!
Outof the sun, out of the blast,Out of the world, alone I passedAcross the moor and through the woodTo 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 hellThe unfraternal brothers dwell.
Poor passionate men, still clothed afreshWith agonising folds of flesh;Whom the clear eyes solicit stillTo some bold output of the will,While fairy Fancy far beforeAnd musing Memory-Hold-the-doorNow to heroic death inviteAnd now uncurtain fresh delight:O, little boots it thus to dwellOn the remote unneighboured hill!
O to be up and doing, OUnfearing and unshamed to goIn all the uproar and the pressAbout my human business!My undissuaded heart I hearWhisper courage in my ear.With voiceless calls, the ancient earthSummons 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 plainWhere honour has the world to gain,Pour forth and bravely do your part,O knights of the unshielded heart!Forth and forever forward!—outFrom 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 stageThe 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 underpropWith 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 stillHere in your fortress on the hill,With placid face, with tranquil breath,The unsought volunteers of death,Our cheerful General on highWith careless looks may pass you by.
Notyet, 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 shoreThou hearest airy voices; but not yetDepart, my soul, not yet awhile depart.
Freedom is far, rest far. Thou art with lifeToo closely woven, nerve with nerve intwined;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 lieImmortal 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 soulAt that so huge indulgence stands amazed.
Leave not, my soul, the unfoughten field, nor leaveThy debts dishonoured, nor thy place desertWithout due service rendered. For thy life,Up, spirit, and defend that fort of clay,Thy body, now beleaguered; whether soonOr late she fall; whether to-day thy friendsBewail thee dead, or, after years, a manGrown old in honour and the friend of peace.Contend, my soul, for moments and for hours;Each is with service pregnant; each reclaimedIs as a kingdom conquered, where to reign.
As when a captain rallies to the fightHis 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 goodSolely delights, and all the camps rejoice.
Itis not yours, O mother, to complain,Not, mother, yours to weep,Though nevermore your son againShall to your bosom creep,Though nevermore again you watch your baby sleep.
Though in the greener paths of earth,Mother and child, no moreWe wander; and no more the birthOf 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 bornIn season fit, and stillEach must in strength arise to work the almighty will.
So from the hearth the children flee,By that almighty handAusterely led; so one by seaGoes forth, and one by land;Nor aught of all man’s sons escapes from that command
So from the sally each obeysThe unseen almighty nod;So till the ending all their waysBlindfolded loth have trod:Nor knew their task at all, but were the tools of God.
And as the fervent smith of yoreBeat out the glowing blade,Nor wielded in the front of warThe weapons that he made,But in the tower at home still plied his ringing trade;
So like a sword the son shall roamOn nobler missions sent;And as the smith remained at homeIn peaceful turret pent,So sits the while at home the mother well content.
Child. Omother, 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 beginThank 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.
Yet, O stricken heart, remember, O rememberHow of human days he lived the better part.April came to bloom and never dim DecemberBreathed its killing chills upon the head or heart.
Doomed to know not Winter, only Spring, a beingTrod 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 undiminishedUndecaying gladness, undeparted dream.
All that life contains of torture, toil, and treason,Shame, dishonour, death, to him were but a name.Here, a boy, he dwelt through all the singing seasonAnd ere the day of sorrow departed as he came.
Davos, 1881.
Peaceand her huge invasion to these shoresPuts daily home; innumerable sailsDawn on the far horizon and draw near;Innumerable loves, uncounted hopesTo our wild coasts, not darkling now, approach:Not now obscure, since thou and thine are there,And bright on the lone isle, the foundered reef,The long, resounding foreland, Pharos stands.
These are thy works, O father, these thy crown;Whether on high the air be pure, they shineAlong the yellowing sunset, and all nightAmong the unnumbered stars of God they shine;Or whether fogs arise and far and wideThe low sea-level drown—each finds a tongueAnd all night long the tolling bell resounds:So shine, so toll, till night be overpast,Till the stars vanish, till the sun return,And in the haven rides the fleet secure.
In the first hour, the seaman in his skiffMoves through the unmoving bay, to where the townIts earliest smoke into the air upbreathesAnd the rough hazels climb along the beach.To the tugg’d oar the distant echo speaks.The ship lies resting, where by reef and roostThou and thy lights have led her like a child.
This hast thou done, and I—can I be base?I must arise, O father, and to portSome lost, complaining seaman pilot home.