Robert Louis Stevenson: Collected Poems :: :: University of Virginia Library

As Love and Hope together
Walk by me for a while,
Link-armed the ways they travel
For many a pleasant mile—
Link-armed and dumb they travel—
They sing not, but they smile.

Hope leaving, Love commences
To practise on the lute;
And as he sings and travels
With lingering, laggard foot,
Despair plays obligato
The sentimental flute.

Until, in singing garments,
Comes royally, at call—
Comes limber-hipped Indiff'rence
Free-stepping, straight and tall—
Comes singing and lamenting—
The sweetest pipe of all.

VI
Duddingston

I

With caws and chirrupings, the woods
In this thin sun rejoice,
The Psalm seems but the little kirk
That sings with its own voice.

The cloud-rifts share their amber light
With the surface of the mere—
I think the very stones are glad
To feel each other near.

Once more my whole heart leaps and swells
And gushes o'er with glee:
The fingers of the sun and shade
Touch music stops in me.

II

Now fancy paints that bygone day
When you were here, my fair—
The whole lake rang with rapid skates
In the windless, winter air.

You leaned to me, I leaned to you,
Our course was smooth as flight—
We steered—a heel-touch to the left,
A heel-touch to the right.

We swung our way through flying men,
Your hand lay fast in mine,
We saw the shifting crowd dispart,
The level ice-reach shine.

I swear by yon swan-travelled lake,
By yon calm hill above,
I swear had we been drowned that day
We had been drowned in love.

VII

[The relic taken, what avails the shrine?]

The relic taken, what avails the shrine?
The locket, pictureless? O heart of mine,
Art thou not less than that,
Still warm, a vacant nest where love once sat.

Her image nestled closer at my heart
Than cherished memories, healed every smart,
And warmed it more than wine
Or the full summer sun in noon-day shine.

This was the little weather-gleam that lit
The cloudy promontories. The real charm was it
That gilded hills and woods
And walked beside me through the solitudes.

That sun is set. My heart is widowed now
Of that companion-thought. Alone I plough
The seas of life, and trace
A separate furrow far from her and grace.

VIII

[All things on earth and sea]

All things on earth and sea,
All that the white stars see,
Turns about you and me.

And where we two are not,
Is darkness like a blot
And life and love forgot.

But when we pass that way,
The night breaks into day,
The year breaks into May.

The earth through all her bowers
Carols and breathes and flowers
About this love of ours.

IX

[I sit up here at midnight]

I sit up here at midnight,
The wind is in the street,
The rain besieges the windows
Like the sound of many feet.

I see the street lamps flicker,
I see them wink and fail,
The streets are wet and empty,
It blows an easterly gale.

Some think of the fisher skipper
Beyond the Inchcape stone;
But I of the fisher woman
That lies at home alone.

She raises herself on her elbow
And watches the firelit floor;
Her eyes are bright with terror,
Her heart beats fast and sore.

Between the roar of the flurries,
When the tempest holds his breath
She holds her breathing also—
It is all as still as death.

She can hear the cinders dropping,
The cat that purrs in its sleep—
The foolish fisher woman!
Her heart is on the deep.

X

[I am a hunchback, yellow faced—]

I am a hunchback, yellow faced—
A hateful sight to see—
Tis all that other men can do
To pass and let me be.

I am a woman—my hair is white—
I was a drunkard's lass;
The gin dances in my head—
I stumble as I pass.

I am a man that God made at first,
And teachers tried to harm;
Here, hunchback, take my friendly hand—
Good woman, take my arm.

XI
Death

We are as maidens one and all,
In some shut convent place,
Pleased with the flowers, the service bells,
The cloister's shady grace,

That whiles, with fearful, fluttering hearts,
Look outward thro' the grate
And down the long, white road, up which,
Some morning, soon or late,

Shall canter on his great, gray horse
That splendid acred Lord
Who comes to lead us forth—his wife,
But half with our accord.

With fearful fluttered hearts, we wait—
We meet him, bathed in tears,
We are so loath to leave behind
Those tranquil Convent years,

So loath to meet the pang, to take
(On some poor chance of bliss)
Life's labour on the windy sea
For a bower as still as this.

Weeping we mount the crowded aisle,
And weeping after us
The Bridesmaids follow—Come to me!
I will not meet you thus,

Pale rider to the Convent gate,
Come, O rough bridegroom, Death,
Where, bashful bride, I wait you veiled,
Flush-faced, with shaken breath.

I do not fear your kiss. I dream
New days, secure from strife,
And, bride-like, in the future hope
A quiet household life.

XII

[A little before me, and hark!]

A little before me, and hark!
The dogs in the village bark.
And see, in the blank of the dark,
The eye of a window shine!

There stands the inn, the small and rude,
In this earth's vast robber-wood
The inn with the beds and the food,
The inn of the shining wine.

We do but bait on life's bare plain,
And through the new day's joy and pain
Reach to the baiting place again.
O rest, for the night, be mine!

Rest for the night! For to love and rest,
To clasp the hands, to keep the nest,
Are only human at the best:
To move and to suffer divine.

XIII
Epistle to Charles Baxter

Reaped grain should fill the reaper's grange,
My fate for thine I would not change.
Thy pathway would to me be strange,
And strange to thee
The limits of the daily range
That pleases me.

For me, I do but ask such grace
As Icarus. Bright breathing space—
One glorious moment—face to face,
The sun and he!
The next, fit grave for all his race,
The splendid sea.

The father, rich in forty years
Of poor experience culled in tears,
Meanly restrained by sordid fears
Went limping home
And hung his pinions by the spears,
No more to roam.

O more to me a thousand fold
The son's brief triumph, wisely bold
To separate from the common fold,
The general curse,
The accustomed way of growing old
And growing worse.

O happy lot! A heart of fire,
In the full flush of young desire,
Not custom-taught to shun the mire
And hold the wall,
His sole experience to aspire,
To soar and fall.

His golden hap it was to go
Straight from the best of life below
To life above. Not his to know,
O greatly blest,
How deadly weary life can grow
To e'en the best.

Sad life, whose highest lore, in vain
The nobler summits to attain,
Still bids me draw the kindly strain
Of love more tight,
And ease my individual pain
In your delight.

For I, that would be blythe and merry,
Prefer to call Marsala sherry,
When duty-bound to cross the ferry
Believe it smooth,
And under pleasant fictions bury
Distasteful truth.

And hence I banish wisdom, set
The sole imperial coronet
On cheerful Folly, at regret
Pull many a mouth,
Drown care in jovial bouts—and yet
Sigh for the South!

O South, South, South! O happy land!
Thou beckon'st me with phantom hand.
Sweet Memories at my bedside stand
All night in tears.
The roar upon thy nightly strand
Yet fills mine ears.

The young grass sparkles in the breeze,
The pleasant sunshine warms my knees,
The buds are thick upon the trees,
The clouds float high.
We sit out here in perfect ease—
My pipe and I.

Fain would I be, where (winter done)
By dusty roads and noontide sun,
The soldiers, straggling one by one,
Marched disarrayed
And spoiled the hedge, till every gun
A Rose displayed.

Or, O flower-land, I would be where
(The trivial, well-beloved affair!)
The bird-watch drew with gentle care
From up his sleeve
And gave me, fluttering from the snare,
A Mange-Olive.

Aye, dear to me the slightest tie
That binds my heart to thee, O high
And sovereign land for whom I sigh
In pain to see
The Springtime come again, and I
So far from thee!

But hush! the clear-throat blackbird sings
From haugh and hill the Season brings
Great armfuls of delightful things
To stop my mouth
Though still (caged-bird) I beat my wings
Toward the South.

XIV
Consolation

Though he, that ever kind and true,
Kept stoutly step by step with you
Your whole long gusty lifetime through,
Be gone a while before,
Be now a moment gone before,
Yet, doubt not, soon the seasons shall restore
Your friend to you.

He has but turned a corner—still
He pushes on with right good will,
Through mire and marsh, by heugh and hill,
That self-same arduous way—
That self-same upland, hopeful way,
That you and he through many a doubtful day
Attempted still.

He is not dead, this friend—not dead,
But in the path we mortals tread
Got some few, trifling steps ahead
And nearer to the end;
So that you too, once past the bend,
Shall meet again, as face to face, this friend
You fancy dead.

Push gaily on, strong heart! The while
You travel forward mile by mile,
He loiters with a backward smile
Till you can overtake,
And strains his eyes to search his wake,
Or whistling, as he sees you through the brake,
Waits on a stile.

XV
To Sydney

Not thine where marble-still and white
Old statues share the tempered light
And mock the uneven modern flight,
But in the stream
Of daily sorrow and delight
To seek a theme.

I too, O friend, have steeled my heart
Boldly to choose the better part,
To leave the beaten ways of art
And wholly free
To dare, beyond the scanty chart,
The deeper sea.

All vain restrictions left behind,
Frail bark! I loose my anchored mind
And large, before the prosperous wind
Desert the strand—
A new Columbus sworn to find
The morning land.

Nor too ambitious, friend. To thee
I own my weakness. Not for me
To sing the enfranchised nations' glee,
Or count the cost
Of warships foundered far at sea
And battles lost.

High on the far-seen, sunny hills,
Morning-content my bosom fills;
Well-pleased, I trace the wandering rills
And learn their birth.
Far off, the clash of sovereign wills
May shake the earth.

The nimble circuit of the wheel,
The uncertain poise of merchant weal,
Horror of famine, fire and steel
When nations fall;
These, heedful, from afar I feel—
I mark them all.

But not, my friend, not these I sing,
My voice shall fill a narrower ring.
Tired souls, that flag upon the wing,
I seek to cheer:
Brave wines to strengthen hope I bring,
Life's cantineer!

Some song that shall be suppling oil
To weary muscles strained with toil,
Shall hearten for the daily moil,
Or widely read
Make sweet for him that tills the soil
His daily bread—

Such songs in my flushed hours I dream
(High thought), instead of armour gleam
Or warrior cantos ream by ream
To load the shelves—
Songs with a lilt of words, that seem
To sing themselves.

XVI

[O dull, cold northern sky]

O dull, cold northern sky,
O brawling sabbath bells,
O feebly twittering Autumn bird that tells
The year is like to die!

O still, spoiled trees, O city ways,
O sun desired in vain,
O dread presentiment of coming rain
That clogs the sullen days!

Thee, heart of mine, I greet.
In what hard mountain pass
Striv'st thou? In what importunate morass
Sink now thy weary feet?

Thou run'st a hopeless race
To win despair. No crown
Awaits success; but leaden gods look down
On thee, with evil face.

And those that would befriend
And cherish thy defeat,
With angry welcome shall turn sour the sweet
Home-coming of the end.

Yea, those that offer praise
To idleness, shall yet
Insult thee, coming glorious in the sweat
Of honourable ways.

XVII

[Swallows travel to and fro]

Swallows travel to and fro,
And the great winds come and go,
And the steady breezes blow,
Bearing perfume, bearing love.
Breezes hasten, swallows fly,
Towered clouds forever ply,
And at noonday you and I
See the same sun shine above.

Dew and rain fall everywhere,
Harvests ripen, flowers are fair,
And the whole round earth is bare
To the moonshine and the sun;
And the live air, fanned with wings,
Bright with breeze and sunshine, brings
Into contact distant things,
And makes all the countries one.

Let us wander where we will,
Something kindred greets us still;
Something seen on vale or hill
Falls familiar on the heart;
So, at scent or sound or sight,
Severed souls by day and night
Tremble with the same delight—
Tremble, half the world apart.

XVIII

[Let Love go, if go she will.]

Let Love go, if go she will.
Seek not, O fool, her wanton flight to stay.
Of all she gives and takes away
The best remains behind her still.

The best remains behind: in vain
Joy may she give and take again,
Joy she may take and leave us pain,
If yet she leave behind
The constant mind
To meet all fortunes nobly, to endure
All things with a good heart, and still be pure.
Still to be foremost in the foremost cause,
And still be worthy of the love that was.

Love coming is omnipotent indeed,
But not Love going. Let her go. The seed
Springs in the favouring Summer air, and grows,
And waxes strong; and when the Summer goes
Remains, a perfect tree.

Joy she may give and take again,
Joy she may take and leave us pain.
O Love, and what care we?
For one thing thou hast given O Love, one thing
Is ours that nothing can remove;
And as the King discrowned is still a King,
The unhappy lover still preserves his love.

XIX

[I am like one that for long days had sate]

I am like one that for long days had sate,
With seaward eyes set keen against the gale,
On some long foreland, watching, sail by sail,
The portbound ships for one ship that was late;
And sail by sail, his heart burned up with joy,
And cruelly was quenched, until at last
One ship, the looked-for pennant at its mast,
Bore gaily, and dropt safely past the buoy;
And lo! the loved one was not there, was dead.
Then would he watch no more; no more the sea
With myriad vessels, sail by sail, perplex
His eyes and mock his longing. Weary head,
Take now thy rest; eyes, close; for no more me
Shall hope untried elate, or ruined vex.

For thus on love I waited; thus for love
Strained all my senses eagerly and long;
Thus for her coming ever trimmed my song;
Till in the far skies coloured as a dove,
A bird gold-coloured flickered far and fled
Over the pathless water waste for me;
And with spread hands I watched the bright bird flee
And waited, till before me she dropped dead.
O golden bird in these dove-coloured skies
How long I sought, how long with wearied eyes
I sought, O bird, the promise of thy flight!
And now the morn has dawned, the morn has died,
The day has come and gone; and once more night
About my lone life settles, wild and wide.

XX

[The roadside lined with ragweed, the sharp hills]

The roadside lined with ragweed, the sharp hills
Standing against the glow of eve, the patch
Of rough white oats 'mongst darkling granite knolls,
The ferny coverts where the adders hatch,
The hollow that the northern sea upfills,
The seagull wheeling by with strange, sad calls,
All these, this evening, weary me. Full fain
Would I turn up the little elm tree way
And under the last elm tree, once again
Stretch myself with my head among the grass;
So lying, tyne the memories of day
And let my loosed, insatiate being pass
Into the blackbird's song of summer ease,
Or, with the white moon, rise in spirit from the trees.

XXI

[Not undelightful, friend, our rustic ease]

Not undelightful, friend, our rustic ease
To grateful hearts; for by especial hap
Deep nested in the hill's enormous lap
With its own ring of walls and grove of trees
Sits, in deep shelter, our small cottage; nor
Far-off is seen, rose carpeted and hung
With Clematis, the quarry whence she sprung.
O matre pulchra filia pulchrior.
Thither in early spring, unharnessed folk,
We join the pairing swallows, glad to stay
Where, bosomed in high hills, remote, unseen,
From its tall trees, it breathes a slender smoke
To heaven, and in the noon of sultry day
Stands, coolly buried, to the neck in green.

XXII

[As Daniel, burd-alone, in that far land]

As Daniel, burd-alone, in that far land,
Kneeling in fervent prayer with heart-sick eyes
Turned thro' the casement toward the westering skies;
Or as untamed Elijah, that red brand
Among the starry prophets; or that band
And company of Faithful sanctities,
Who, in all times, when persecutions rise,
Cherish forgotten creeds with fostering hand;
Such do ye seem to me, light-hearted crew,
O turned to friendly arts with all your will,
That keep a little chapel sacred still,
One rood of Holy-land in this bleak earth
Sequestered still (our homage surely due!)
To the twin Gods of mirthful wine and mirth.

XXIII
The Light-Keeper

I

The brilliant kernel of the night,
The flaming lightroom circles me:
I sit within a blaze of light
Held high above the dusky sea.
Far off the surf doth break and roar
Along bleak miles of moonlit shore,
Where through the tides the tumbling wave
Falls in an avalanche of foam
And drives its churned waters home
Up many an undercliff and cave.

The clear bell chimes: the clockworks strain,
The turning lenses flash and pass,
Frame turning within glittering frame
With frosty gleam of moving glass:
Unseen by me, each dusky hour
The sea-waves welter up the tower
Or in the ebb subside again;
And ever and anon all night,
Drawn from afar by charm of light,
A sea bird beats against the pane.

And lastly when dawn ends the night
And belts the semi-orb of sea,
The tall, pale pharos in the light
Looks white and spectral as may be.
The early ebb is out: the green
Straight belt of seaweed now is seen,
That round the basement of the tower
Marks out the interspace of tide;
And watching men are heavy-eyed,
And sleepless lips are dry and sour.

The night is over like a dream:
The sea-birds cry and dip themselves:
And in the early sunlight, steam
The newly bared and dripping shelves,
Around whose verge the glassy wave
With lisping wash is heard to lave;
While, on the white tower lifted high,
The circling lenses flash and pass
With yellow light in faded glass
And sickly shine against the sky.

II

As the steady lenses circle
With a frosty gleam of glass;
And the clear bell chimes,
And the oil brims over the lip of the burner,
Quiet and still at his desk,
The lonely Light-Keeper
Holds his vigil.

Lured from far,
The bewildered seagull beats
Dully against the lantern;
Yet he stirs not, lifts not his head
From the desk where he reads,
Lifts not his eyes to see
The chill blind circle of night
Watching him through the panes.
This is his country's guardian,
The outmost sentry of peace.
This is the man
Who gives up that is lovely in living
For the means to live.

Poetry cunningly gilds
The life of the Light-Keeper,
Held on high in the blackness
In the burning kernel of night,
The seaman sees and blesses him,
The Poet, deep in a sonnet,
Numbers his inky fingers
Fitly to praise him.
Only we behold him,
Sitting, patient and stolid,
Martyr to a salary.

XXIV

[My brain swims empty and light]

My brain swims empty and light
Like a nut on a sea of oil;
And an atmosphere of quiet
Wraps me about from the turmoil and clamour of life.

I stand apart from living,
Apart and holy I stand,
In my new-gained growth of idleness, I stand,
As stood the Shekinah of yore in the holy of holies.

I walk the streets smoking my pipe
And I love the dallying shop-girl
That leans with rounded stern to look at the fashions;
And I hate the bustling citizen,
The eager and hurrying man of affairs I hate,
Because he bears his intolerance writ on his face
And every movement and word of him tells me how much he hates me.

I love night in the city,
The lighted streets and the swinging gait of harlots.
I love cool pale morning,
In the empty bye-streets,
With only here and there a female figure,
A slavey with lifted dress and the key in her hand,
A girl or two at play in a corner of waste-land
Tumbling and showing their legs and crying out to me loosely.

XXV
The Cruel Mistress

Here let me rest, here nurse the uneasy qualm
That yearns within me;
And to the heaped-up sea,
Sun-spangled in the quiet afternoon,
Sing my devotions.

In the sun, at the edge of the down,
The whin-pods crackle
In desultory volleys;
And the bank breathes in my face
Its hot sweet breath—
Breath that stirs and kindles,
Lights that suggest, not satisfy—
Is there never in life or nature
An opiate for desire?
Has everything here a voice,
Saying ‘I am not the goal;
Nature is not to be looked at alone;
Her breath, like the breath of a mistress,
Her breath also,
Parches the spirit with longing
Sick and enervating longing.’

Well, let the matter rest.
I rise and brush the windle-straws
Off my clothes; and lighting another pipe
Stretch myself over the down.
Get thee behind me, Nature!
I turn my back on the sun
And face from the grey new town at the foot of the bay.

I know an amber lady
Who has her abode
At the lips of the street
In prisons of coloured glass.
I had rather die of her love
Than sicken for you, O Nature!
Better be drunk and merry
Than dreaming awake!
Better be Falstaff than Obermann!

XXVI
Storm

The narrow lanes are vacant and wet;
The rough wind bullies and blusters about the township.
And spins the vane on the tower
And chases the scurrying leaves,
And the straw in the damp innyard.
See—a girl passes
Tripping gingerly over the pools,
And under her lifted dress
I catch the gleam of a comely, stockinged leg.
Pah! the room stifles me,
Reeking of stale tobacco—
With the four black mealy horrible prints
After Landseer's pictures.
I will go out.

Here the free wind comes with a fuller circle,
Sings, like an angry wasp, in the straining grass,
Sings and whistles;
And the hurried flow of rain
Scourges my face and passes.

Behind me, clustered together, the rain-wet roofs of the town
Shine, and the light vane shines as it veers
In the long pale finger of sun that hurries across them to me.
The fresh salt air is keen in my nostrils,
And far down the shining sand
Foam and thunder
And take the shape of the bay in eager mirth
The white-head hungry billows.
The earth shakes
As the semicircle of waters
Stoops and casts itself down;
And far outside in the open,
Wandering gleams of sunshine
Show us the ordered horde that hurries to follow.

Ei! merry companions,
Your madness infects me.
My whole soul rises and falls and leaps and tumbles with you!
I shout aloud and incite you, O white-headed merry companions.
The sight of you alone is better than drinking.
The brazen band is loosened from off my forehead;
My breast and my brain are moistened and cool;
And still I yell in answer
To your hoarse inarticulate voices,
O big, strong, bullying, boisterous waves,
That are of all things in nature the nearest thoughts to human,
Because you are wicked and foolish,
Mad and destructive.

XXVII
Stormy Nights

I cry out war to those who spend their utmost,
Trying to substitute a vain regret
For childhood's vanished moods,
Instead of a full manly satisfaction
In new development.
Their words are vain as the lost shouts,
The wasted breath of solitary hunters
That are far buried in primeval woods—
Clamour that dies in silence,
Cries that bring back no answer
But the great voice of the wind-shaken forest,
Mocking despair.

No—they will get no answer;
For I too recollect,
I recollect and love my perished childhood,
Perfectly love and keenly recollect;
I too remember; and if it could be
Would not recall it.

Do I not know, how, nightly, on my bed
The palpable close darkness shutting round me,
How my small heart went forth to evil things,
How all the possibilities of sin
That were yet present to my innocence
Bound me too narrowly,
And how my spirit beat
The cage of its compulsive purity;
How—my eyes fixed,
My shot lip tremulous between my fingers

I fashioned for myself new modes of crime,
Created for myself with pain and labour
The evil that the cobwebs of society,
The comely secrecies of education,
Had made an itching mystery to meward.

Do I not know again,
When the great winds broke loose and went abroad
At night in the lighted town—
Ah! then it was different—
Then, when I seemed to hear
The storm go by me like a cloak-wrapt horseman
Stooping over the saddle—
Go by, and come again and yet again,
Like some one riding with a pardon,
And ever baffled, ever shut from passage:
Then when the house shook and a horde of noises
Came out and clattered over me all night,
Then, would my heart stand still,
My hair creep fearfully upon my head
And, with my tear-wet face
Buried among the bed-clothes,
Long and bitterly would I pray and wrestle
Till gentle sleep
Threw her great mantle over me,
And my hard breathing gradually ceased.

I was then the Indian,
Well and happy and full of glee and pleasure,
Both hands full of life.
And not without divine impulses
Shot into me by the untried non-ego;
But, like the Indian, too,
Not yet exempt from feverish questionings,
And on my bed of leaves,

Writhing terribly in grasp of terror,
As when the still stars and the great white moon
Watch me athwart black foliage,
Trembling before the interminable vista,
The widening wells of space
In which my thought flags like a wearied bird
In the mid ocean of his autumn flight—
Prostrate before the indefinite great spirit
That the external warder
Plunged like a dagger
Into my bosom.
Now, I am a Greek
White-robed among the sunshine and the statues
And the fair porticos of carven marble—
Fond of olives and dry sherry,
Good tobacco and clever talk with my fellows,
Free from inordinate cravings.
Why would you hurry me, O evangelist,
You with the bands and the shilling packet of tracts
Greatly reduced when taken for distribution?
Why do you taunt my progress,
O green-spectacled Wordsworth! in beautiful verses,
You, the elderly poet?
So I shall travel forward
Step by step with the rest of my race,
In time, if death should spare me,
I shall come on to a farther stage,
And show you St Francis of Assisi.

XXVIII
Song at Dawn

I see the dawn creep round the world,
Here damm'd a moment backward by great hills,
There racing o'er the sea.
Down at the round equator,
It leaps forth straight and rapid,
Driving with firm sharp edge the night before it.
Here gradually it floods
The wooded valleys and the weeds
And the still smokeless cities.
The cocks crow up at the farms;
The sick man's spirit is glad;
The watch treads brisker about the dew-wet deck;
The light-keeper locks his desk,
As the lenses turn,
Faded and yellow.

The girl with the embroidered shift
Rises and leans on the sill,
And her full bosom heaves
Drinking deep of the silentness.
I too rise and watch
The healing fingers of dawn—
I too drink from its eyes
The unaccountable peace—
I too drink and am satisfied as with food.
Fain would I go
Down by the winding crossroad by the trees,
Where at the corner of wet wood
The blackbird in the early grey and stillness
Wakes his first song.

Peace, who can make verses clink,
Find ictus following surely after ictus,
At such an hour as this, the heart
Lies steeped and silent.
O dreaming, leaning girl,
Already are the sovereign hill-tops ruddy,
Already the grey passes, the white streak
Brightens above dark woodlands, Day begins.

XXIX
Nous n'irons plus aux bois

We'll walk the woods no more,
But stay beside the fire,
To weep for old desire
And things that are no more.
The woods are spoiled and hoar,
The ways are full of mire;
We'll walk the woods no more,
But stay beside the fire.
We loved, in days of yore,
Love, laughter, and the lyre.
Ah God, but death is dire,
And death is at the door—
We'll walk the woods no more.

XXX

[In Autumn when the woods are red]

In Autumn when the woods are red
And skies are grey and clear,
The sportsmen seek the wild fowls' bed
Or follow down the deer;

And Cupid hunts by haugh and head,
By riverside and mere,
I walk, not seeing where I tread
And keep my heart with fear,
Sir, have an eye, on where you tread,
And keep your heart with fear,
For something lingers here;
A touch of April not yet dead,
In Autumn when the woods are red
And skies are grey and clear.

XXXI

[Love is the very heart of Spring]

Love is the very heart of Spring;
Flocks fall to loving on the lea
And wildfowl love upon the wing,
When Spring first enters like a sea.
When Spring first enters like a sea
Into the heart of everything;
Bestir yourselves religiously,
Incense before love's altar bring.
Incense before love's altar bring,
Flowers from the flowering hawthorn tree,
Flowers from the margin of the spring,
For all the flowers are sweet to see.
Love is the very heart of Spring;
When Spring first enters like a sea
Incense before love's altar bring,
And flowers while flowers are sweet to see.
Bring flowers while flowers are sweet to see.
Love is almighty, love's a King,
Incense before love's altar bring,
Incense before love's altar bring.

Love's gifts are generous and free
When Spring first enters like a sea;
When Spring first enters like a sea,
The birds are all inspired to sing.
Love is the very heart of Spring,
The birds are all inspired to sing,
Love's gifts are generous and free,
Love is almighty, love's a King.

XXXII

[I who all the winter through]

I who all the winter through,
Cherished other loves than you,
And kept hands with hoary policy in marriage bed and pew;
Now I know the false and true,
For the earnest sun looks through,
And my old love comes to meet me in the dawning and the dew.
Now the hedged meads renew
Rustic odour, smiling hue,
And the clean air shines and twinkles as the world goes wheeling through;
And my heart springs up anew,
Bright and confident and true,
And my old love comes to meet me in the dawning and the dew.

XXXIII

[Here you rest among the vallies, maiden known to but a few]

Here you rest among the vallies, maiden known to but a few;
Here you sleep unsighing, but how oft of yore you sighed!
And how oft your feet elastic trod a measure in the dew
On a green beside the river ere you died!

Where are now the country lovers whom you trembled to be near—
Who, with shy advances, in the falling eventide,
Grasped thee tightlier at your fingers, whispered lowlier in your ear,
On a green beside the river ere you died?

All the sweet old country dancers who went round with you in tune,
Dancing, flushed and silent, in the silent eventide,
All departed by enchantment at the rising of the moon
From the green beside the river when you died.

XXXIV

[There where the land of love]

There where the land of love,
Grown about by fragrant bushes,
Sunken in a winding valley,
Where the clear winds blow
And the shadows come and go,
And the cattle stand and low
And the sheep bells and the linnets
Sing and tinkle musically.
Between the past and the future,
Those two black infinities
Between which our brief life
Flashes a moment and goes out.

XXXV

[Love—what is love? A great and aching heart]

Love—what is love? A great and aching heart
Wrung hands; and silence; and a long despair.
Life—what is life? Upon a moorland bare
To see love coming and see love depart.

XXXVI

[Death, to the dead for evermore]

Death, to the dead for evermore
A King, a God, the last, the best of friends—
Whene'er this mortal journey ends
Death, like a host, comes smiling to the door;
Smiling, he greets us, on that tranquil shore
Where neither piping bird nor peeping dawn
Disturbs the eternal sleep,
But in the stillness far withdrawn
Our dreamless rest for evermore we keep.

For as from open windows forth we peep
Upon the night-time star beset
And with dews for ever wet;
So from this garish life the spirit peers;
And lo! as a sleeping city, death outspread,
Where breathe the sleepers evenly; and lo!
After the loud wars, triumphs, trumpets, tears
And clamour of man's passion, Death appears
And we must rise and go.

Soon are eyes tired with sunshine, soon the ears
Weary of utterance, seeing all is said;
Soon, racked by hopes and fears,
The all-pondering, all-contriving head,
Weary with all things, wearies of the years;
And our sad spirits turn toward the dead;
And the tired child, the body, longs for bed.

XXXVII

[I saw red evening through the rain]

I saw red evening through the rain,
Lower above the steaming plain;
I heard the hour strike small and still,
From the black belfry on the hill.

Thought is driven out of doors to-night
By bitter memory of delight;
The sharp constraint of finger tips,
Or the shuddering touch of lips.

I heard the hour strike small and still,
From the black belfry on the hill.
Behind me I could still look down
On the outspread monstrous town.

The sharp constraint of finger tips
Or the shuddering touch of lips,
And all old memories of delight
Crowd upon my soul to-night.

Behind me I could still look down
On the outspread feverish town;
But before me still and grey
And lonely was the forward way.

XXXVIII
The Daughter of Herodias

Three yellow slaves were set to swing
The doorway curtain to and fro,
With rustle of light folds and ring
Of little bells that hung below;
The still, hot night was tempered so.

And ever, from the carven bed,
She watched the labour of the men;
And saw the band of moonlight spread,
Leap up upon her feet and then
Leap down upon the floor again;

And ever, vexed with heat and doubt,
Below the burthen of their shawls,
The still grey olives saw without
And glimmer of white garden walls,
Between the alternate curtain falls.

What ailed the dainty lady then,
The dainty lady, fair and sweet?
Unseen of these three silent men,
A something lay upon her feet,
Not comely for such eyes to meet.

She saw a golden salver there
And, laid upon it, on the bed,
The white teeth showing keen and bare
Between the sundered lips, a head
Sallow and horrible and dead.

She saw upon the sallow cheek
Rust-coloured blood-stains; and the eye
Her frightened glances seemed to seek
Half-lifting its blue lid on high,
Watching her, horrible and sly.

Thus spake she: ‘Once again that head!
I ate too much pilau to-night,
My mother and the eunuchs said.
Well, I can take a hint aright—
To-morrow's supper shall be light.’

XXXIX

[As one who having wandered all night long]

As one who having wandered all night long
In a perplexed forest, comes at length,
In the first hours, about the matin song,
And when the sun uprises in his strength,
To the fringed margin of the wood, and sees,
Gazing afar before him, many a mile
Of falling country, many fields and trees,
And cities and bright streams and far-off Ocean's smile:

I, O Melampus, halting, stand at gaze;
I, liberated, look abroad on life,
Love, and distress, and dusty travelling ways,
The steersman's helm, the surgeon's helpful knife,
Or the lone ploughman's earth-upturning share,
The revelry of cities and the sound
Of seas, and mountain-tops aloof in air,
And of the circling earth the unsupported round:

I, looking, wonder: I, intent, adore;
And, O Melampus, reaching forth my hands
In adoration, cry aloud and soar
In spirit, high above the supine lands
And the low cares of mortal things, and flee
To the last fields of the universe untrod,
Where is nor man, nor any earth, nor sea,
And the contented soul is all alone with God.

XL
Praise and Prayer

I have been well, I have been ill,
I have been rich and poor;
I have set my back against the wall
And fought it by the hour;

I have been false, I have been true;
And thoro' grief and mirth,
I have done all that man can do
To be a man of worth;

And now, when from an unknown shore,
I dare an unknown wave,
God, who has helped me heretofore,
O help me wi' the lave!

XLI
John Cavalier

These are your hills, John Cavalier.
Your father's kids you tended here,
And grew, among these mountains wild,
A humble and religious child.
Fate turned the wheel; you grew and grew;
Bold Marshals doffed the hat to you;
God whispered counsels in your ear
To guide your sallies, Cavalier.

You shook the earth with martial tread;
The ensigns fluttered by your head;
In Spain or France, Velay or Kent,
The music sounded as you went.
Much would I give if I might spy
Your brave battalions marching by;
Or, on the wind, if I might hear
Your drums and bugles, Cavalier.

In vain. O'er all the windy hill,
The ways are void, the air is still,
Alone, below the echoing rock,
The shepherd calls upon his flock.
The wars of Spain and of Cevennes,
The bugles and the marching men,
The horse you rode for many a year—
Where are they now, John Cavalier?

All armies march the selfsame way
Far from the cheerful eye of day;
And you and yours marched down below
About two hundred years ago.
Over the hills, into the shade,
Journeys each mortal cavalcade;
Out of the sound, out of the sun,
They go when their day's work is done;
And all shall doff the bandoleer
To sleep with dead John Cavalier.

100

XLII
The Iron Steed

In our black stable by the sea,
Five and twenty stalls you see—
Five and twenty strong are we:
The lanterns tossed the shadows round,
Live coals were scattered on the ground,
The swarthy ostlers echoing stept,
But silent all night long we slept.
Inactive we, steeds of the day,
The shakers of the mountains, lay.
Earth's oldest veins our dam and sire,
Iron chimeras fed with fire.
All we, the unweary, lay at rest;
The sleepless lamp burned on our crest;
And in the darkness far and nigh,
We heard our iron compeers cry:

Soon as the day began to spring . . .

XLIII

[Of where or how, I nothing know]

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 Susquehanna 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;
Or breathed perchance too deep the lotus of the air
Beside the Susquehanna and along the Delaware.

101

Though westward steers the train, my soul
Shall for the East declare;
Shall take the East for goal,
Outward and upward bound; and still shall roll,
And still unconquered live, as now she spurns despair
Beside the Susquehanna and along the Delaware.

Unweary God me yet shall bring
To lands of brighter air,
Where I, now half a king,
Shall with superior spirit loudlier sing,
And wear a bolder front than that which now I wear
Beside the Susquehanna and along the Delaware

PIECES IN LALLAN

I
To The Commissioners of Northern Lights, with a Paper

I send to you, commissioners,
A paper that may please ye, sirs,
(For troth they say it micht be worse
An' I believ't)
And on your business lay my curse
Before I leav't.

I thocht I'd serve wi' you, sirs, yince,
But I've thocht better of it since;
The maitter I will nowise mince,
But tell ye true:
I'll service wi' some ither prince,
An' no' wi' you.

102

I've no' been very deep, ye'll think,
Cam' delicately to the brink
An' when the water gart me shrink
Straucht took the rue,
An' didna stoop my fill to drink—
I own it true.

I kent on cape and isle, a light
Burnt fair an' clearly ilka night;
But at the service I took fright,
As sune's I saw,
An' being still a neophite
Gaed straucht awa'.

Anither course I now begin,
The weeg I'll cairry for my sin,
The court my voice sall echo in,
An'—wha can tell?—
Some ither day I may be yin
O' you mysel'.

II
To Mesdames Zassetsky and Garschine

The wind may blaw the lee-lang way
And aye the lift be mirk an' gray,
An' deep the moss and steigh the brae
Where a' maun gang—
There's still an hoor in ilka day
For luve and sang.

103

And canty hearts are strangly steeled.
By some dikeside they'll find a bield,
Some couthy neuk by muir or field
They're sure to hit,
Where, frae the blatherin' wind concealed,
They'll rest a bit.

An' weel for them if kindly fate
Send ower the hills to them a mate;
They'll crack a while o' kirk an' State,
O' yowes an' rain:
And when it's time to tak' the gate,
Tak' ilk his ain.

—Sic neuk beside the southern sea
I soucht—sic place o' quiet lee
Frae a' the winds o' life. To me,
Fate, rarely fair,
Had set a freendly company
To meet me there.

Kindly by them they gart me sit,
An' blythe was I to bide a bit.
Licht as o' some hame fireside lit
My life for me.
—Ower early maun I rise an' quit
This happy lee.

104

III
To Charles Baxter

Noo lyart leaves blaw ower the green,
Reid are the bonny woods o' Dean,
An' here we're back in Embro, frien',
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

105

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 oor auncient ways—
The strauchtest road in a' the maze
Since Eve ate apples;
An' let the winter weet oor cla'es—
We'll weet oor thrapples.

106

IV
To the Same [Charles Baxter]

On the death of their common friend, Mr John Adam, Clerk of Court

An' Johnie's deid. The mair's the pity!
He's deid, an' deid o' Aqua-vitae.
O Embro', you're a shrunken city,
Noo Johnie's deid!
Tak hands, an' sing a burial ditty
Ower Johnie's heid.

To see him was baith drink an' meat,
Gaun linkin' glegly up the street.
He but to rin or tak a seat,
The wee bit body!
Bein' aye unsicker on his feet
Wi' whusky toddy.

To be aye tosh was Johnie's whim.
There's nane was better tent than him,
Though whiles his gravit-knot wad clim'
Ahint his ear,
An' whiles he'd buttons oot or in
The less or mair.

His hair a' lank aboot his bree,
His tap-lip lang by inches three—
A slockened sort o' mou', to pree
A' sensuality—
A drouthy glint was in his e'e
An' personality.

107

An' day an' nicht, frae daw to daw,
Dink an' perjink an' doucely braw,
Wi' a kind o' Gospel look ower a',
May or October,
Like Peden, followin' the Law
An' no that sober.

An' wow! but John was unco sport.
Whiles he wad smile aboot the Court
Malvolio-like—whiles snore an' snort,
Was heard afar.
The idle writer lads' resort
Was aye John's bar.

Whusky an' he were pack thegether.
Whate'er the hour, whate'er the weather,
John kept himsel' wi' mistened leather
An' kindled spunk.
Wi' him, there was nae askin' whether—
John was aye drunk.

The auncient heroes gash an' bauld
In the uncanny days of Auld,
The task ance found to which th'were called,
Stack stenchly to it.
His life sic noble lives recalled,
Little's he knew it.

Single an' straucht, he went his way.
He kept the faith an' played the play.
Whusky an' he were man an' may
Whate'er betided.
Bonny in life—in death, thir twae
Were no' divided.

108

What's merely humourous or bonny
The warl' regairds wi' cauld astony.
Drunk men tak' aye mair place than ony;
An' sae, ye see,
The gate was aye ower thrang for Johnie—
Or you an' me.

John micht hae jingled cap an' bells,
Been a braw fule in silks an' fells.
In ane o' the auld warl's canty hells,
Paris or Sodom.
I wadnae had him naething else
But Johnie Adam.

He suffered—as have a' that wan
Eternal memory frae man,
Sin' e'er the weary warl' began—
Mister or Madam,
Keats or Scots Burns, the Spanish Dan
Or Johnie Adam.

We leuch, an' Johnie deid. An', fegs!
Hoo he had keept his stoiterin' legs
Sae lang's he did, 's a fact that begs
An explanation.
He stachers fifty years—syne flegs
To's destination.

University of Virginia Library

POEMS 1869–1879

I Dedication

II

[Last night, I lingered long without]

III After Reading ‘Antony and Cleopatra’

IV Spring-Song

V

[As Love and Hope together]

VI Duddingston

I

II

VII