War poems
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The Vagabond
© Robert Louis Stevenson
Give to me the life I love,
Let the lave go by me,
Give the jolly heaven above
And the byway nigh me.
The Relic Taken, What Avails The Shrine?
© Robert Louis Stevenson
THE relic taken, what avails the shrine?
The locket, pictureless? O heart of mine,
Art thou not worse than that,
Still warm, a vacant nest where love once sat?
The Gardener
© Robert Louis Stevenson
The gardener does not love to talk,
He makes me keep the gravel walk;
And when he puts his tools away,
He locks the door and takes the key.
The Bour-Tree Den
© Robert Louis Stevenson
CLINKUM-CLANK in the rain they ride,
Down by the braes and the grey sea-side;
Clinkum-clank by stane and cairn,
Weary fa' their horse-shoe-airn!
Summer Sun
© Robert Louis Stevenson
Great is the sun, and wide he goes
Through empty heaven with repose;
And in the blue and glowing days
More thick than rain he showers his rays.
Prelude
© Robert Louis Stevenson
BY sunny market-place and street
Wherever I go my drum I beat,
And wherever I go in my coat of red
The ribbons flutter about my head.
Pirate Story
© Robert Louis Stevenson
Three of us afloat in the meadow by the swing,
Three of us abroad in the basket on the lea.
Winds are in the air, they are blowing in the spring,
And waves are on the meadow like the waves there are at sea.
Now Bare To The Beholder's Eye
© Robert Louis Stevenson
NOW bare to the beholder's eye
Your late denuded bindings lie,
Subsiding slowly where they fell,
A disinvested citadel;
My Love Was Warm
© Robert Louis Stevenson
MY love was warm; for that I crossed
The mountains and the sea,
Nor counted that endeavour lost
That gave my love to me.
Men Are Heaven's Piers
© Robert Louis Stevenson
MEN are Heaven's piers; they evermore
Unwearying bear the skyey floor;
Man's theatre they bear with ease,
Unfrowning cariatides!
In Port
© Robert Louis Stevenson
Last, to the chamber where I lie
My fearful footsteps patter nigh,
And come out from the cold and gloom
Into my warm and cheerful room.
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 Love To Be Warm By The Red Fireside
© Robert Louis Stevenson
I LOVE to be warm by the red fireside,
I love to be wet with rain:
I love to be welcome at lamplit doors,
And leave the doors again.
Go, Little Book - The Ancient Phrase
© Robert Louis Stevenson
GO, little book - the ancient phrase
And still the daintiest - go your ways,
My Otto, over sea and land,
Till you shall come to Nelly's hand.
For Richmond's Garden Wall
© Robert Louis Stevenson
WHEN Thomas set this tablet here,
Time laughed at the vain chanticleer;
And ere the moss had dimmed the stone,
Time had defaced that garrison.
Dedicatory Poem For "Underwoods"
© Robert Louis Stevenson
TO her, for I must still regard her
As feminine in her degree,
Who has been my unkind bombarder
Year after year, in grief and glee,
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;
Armies in the Fire
© Robert Louis Stevenson
The lamps now glitter down the street;
Faintly sound the falling feet;
And the blue even slowly falls
About the garden trees and walls.
Air Of Diabelli's
© Robert Louis Stevenson
Still in the river see the shallop floats.
Hark! Chimes the falling oar.
Still in the mind
Hark to the song of the past!
Dream, and they pass in their dreams.
Ad Piscatorem
© Robert Louis Stevenson
FOR these are sacred fishes all
Who know that lord that is the lord of all;
Come to the brim and nose the friendly hand
That sways and can beshadow all the land.
