Life poems
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In the Highlands
© Robert Louis Stevenson
IN the highlands, in the country places,
Where the old plain men have rosy faces,
And the young fair maidens
Quiet eyes;
If This Were Faith
© Robert Louis Stevenson
God, if this were enough,
That I see things bare to the buff
And up to the buttocks in mire;
That I ask nor hope nor hire,
I Now, O Friend, Whom Noiselessly The Snows
© Robert Louis Stevenson
I NOW, O friend, whom noiselessly the snows
Settle around, and whose small chamber grows
Dusk as the sloping window takes its load:
I Am Like One That For Long Days Had Sate
© Robert Louis Stevenson
I AM like one that for long days had sate,
With seaward eyes set keen against the gale,
On some lone foreland, watching sail by sail,
The portbound ships for one ship that was late;
Henry James
© Robert Louis Stevenson
Who comes to-night? We open the doors in vain.
Who comes? My bursting walls, can you contain
The presences that now together throng
Your narrow entry, as with flowers and song,
Hail! Childish Slave Of Social Rules
© Robert Louis Stevenson
HAIL! Childish slaves of social rules
You had yourselves a hand in making!
How I could shake your faith, ye fools,
If but I thought it worth the shaking.
Foreign Children
© Robert Louis Stevenson
Little Indian, Sioux, or Crow,
Little frosty Eskimo,
Little Turk or Japanee,
Oh! don't you wish that you were me?
Flower God, God Of The Spring
© Robert Louis Stevenson
FLOWER god, god of the spring, beautiful, bountiful,
Cold-dyed shield in the sky, lover of versicles,
Here I wander in April
Cold, grey-headed; and still to my
Fear Not, Dear Friend, But Freely Live Your Days
© Robert Louis Stevenson
FEAR not, dear friend, but freely live your days
Though lesser lives should suffer. Such am I,
A lesser life, that what is his of sky
Gladly would give for you, and what of praise.
Death, To The Dead For Evermore
© Robert Louis Stevenson
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;
De M. Antonio
© Robert Louis Stevenson
NOW Antoninus, in a smiling age,
Counts of his life the fifteenth finished stage.
The rounded days and the safe years he sees,
Nor fears death's water mounting round his knees.
Come, My Beloved, Hear From Me
© Robert Louis Stevenson
COME, my beloved, hear from me
Tales of the woods or open sea.
Let our aspiring fancy rise
A wren's flight higher toward the skies;
Behold, As Goblins Dark Of Mien
© Robert Louis Stevenson
BEHOLD, as goblins dark of mien
And portly tyrants dyed with crime
Change, in the transformation scene,
At Christmas, in the pantomime,
Away With Funeral Music
© Robert Louis Stevenson
AWAY with funeral music - set
The pipe to powerful lips -
The cup of life's for him that drinks
And not for him that sips.
As One Who Having Wandered All Night Long
© Robert Louis Stevenson
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,
As In Their Flight The Birds Of Song
© Robert Louis Stevenson
AS in their flight the birds of song
Halt here and there in sweet and sunny dales,
But halt not overlong;
The time one rural song to sing
After Reading "Antony And Cleopatra"
© Robert Louis Stevenson
AS when the hunt by holt and field
Drives on with horn and strife,
Hunger of hopeless things pursues
Our spirits throughout life.
Ad Quintilianum
© Robert Louis Stevenson
O CHIEF director of the growing race,
Of Rome the glory and of Rome the grace,
Me, O Quintilian, may you not forgive
Before from labour I make haste to live?
Ad Nepotem
© Robert Louis Stevenson
And lose the prime of thy Falernian?
Hoard casks of money, if to hoard be thine;
But let thy daughter drink a younger wine!
Let her go rich and wise, in silk and fur;
Ad Martialem
© Robert Louis Stevenson
GO(D) knows, my Martial, if we two could be
To enjoy our days set wholly free;
To the true life together bend our mind,
And take a furlough from the falser kind.
