Robert Louis Stevenson, an Elegy; and Other Poems

Richard Le Gallienne

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The Project Gutenberg EBook of Robert Louis Stevenson, an Elegy; And Other Poems, by Richard Le GallienneThis eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere 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.netTitle: Robert Louis Stevenson, an Elegy; And Other PoemsAuthor: Richard Le GallienneRelease Date: February 2, 2004 [EBook #10910]Language: English*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK STEVENSON AND ELEGY ***Produced by Brendan Lane, Carol David and the Online Distributed Proofreading TeamROBERTLOUISSTEVENSONAN ELEGYAND OTHER POEMS MAINLY PERSONALBY RICHARD LE GALLIENNEMDCCCXCVTO MY DEAR MOTHER AND FATHER THESE POEMS ARE LOVINGLY DEDICATEDCONTENTSROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON: AN ELEGY AN ODE TO SPRING TREE-WORSHIP A BALLAD OF LONDON PARIS DAY BY DAY: A FAMILIAR EPISTLE ALFREDTENNYSON PROFESSOR MINTO ON MR. GLADSTONE'S RETIREMENT OMAR KHAYYAM THE SECOND CRUCIFIXION AN IMPRESSION NATURALRELIGION FAITH REBORN HESPERIDES JENNY DEAD MY BOOKS MAMMON ART TO A POET A NEW YEAR LETTER SNATCH MY MAIDEN VOTE THEANIMALCULE ON MAN COME, MY CELIA TIME'S MONOTONECOR CORDIUMO GOLDEN DAY! O SILVER NIGHT! LOVE'S EXCHANGE TO A SIMPLE HOUSEWIFE LOVE'S WISDOM HOME LOVE'S LANDMARKS IF, AFTER ALL…!SPIRIT OF SADNESS AN INSCRIPTION SONGROBERT LOUIS STEVENSONAN ELEGYHigh on his Patmos of the Southern SeasOur northern dreamer ...

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• Publié par: zyon
• Publié le: 08 décembre 2010
• Nombre de lectures: 45
• Langue: English

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*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK STEVENSON AND ELEGY ***

Title: Robert Louis Stevenson, an Elegy; And Other Poems Author: Richard Le Gallienne Release Date: February 2, 2004 [EBook #10910] Language: English

AN ELEGY

AND OTHER POEMS MAINLY PERSONAL BY RICHARD LE GALLIENNE

TO MY DEAR MOTHER AND FATHER THESE POEMS ARE LOVINGLY DEDICATED

MDCCCXCV

CONTENTS ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON: AN ELEGY AN ODE TO SPRING TREE-WORSHIP A BALLAD OF LONDON PARIS DAY BY DAY: A FAMILIAR EPISTLE ALFRED TENNYSON PROFESSOR MINTO ON MR. GLADSTONE'S RETIREMENT OMAR KHAYYAM THESECOND CRUCIFIXION AN IMPRESSION NATURAL RELIGION FAITH REBORN HESPERIDES JENNY DEAD MY BOOKS MAMMON ART TO A POET A NEW YEAR LETTER SNATCH MY MAIDEN VOTE THE ANIMALCULEON MAN COME, MYCELIA TIME'S MONOTONE

ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON

Produced by Brendan Lane, Carol David and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team

COR CORDIUM O GOLDEN DAY! O SILVER NIGHT! LOVE'S EXCHANGETO A SIMPLEHOUSEWIFELOVE'S WISDOM HOMELOVE'S LANDMARKS IF, AFTER ALL…! SPIRIT OFSADNESS AN INSCRIPTION SONG

Strange Isle of Voices! must we ask in vain, In vain beseech and win no answering word, Save mocking echoes of our lonely pain From lonely hill and bird? Island beneath whose unrelenting coast, As though it never in the sun had been, The whole world's treasure lieth sunk and lost, Unsunned, unseen. For, either sunk beyond the diver's skill, There, fathoms deep, our gold is all arust, Or in that island it is hoarded still. Yea, some have said, within thy dreadful wall There is a folk that know not death at all, The loved we lost, the lost we love, are there. Will no kind voice make answer to our cry, Give to our aching hearts some little trust, Show how 'tis good to live, but best to die? Some voice that knows Whither the dead man goes: We hear his music from the other side, Maybe a little tapping on the door, A something called, a something sighed— No more. O for some voice to valiantly declare The best news true! Then, Happy Island of the Happy Dead, How gladly would we spread Impatient sail for you!

Death, that long sought our poet, finds at last, Death, that pursued him over land and sea: Not his the flight of fear, the heart aghast With stony dread of immortality, He fled 'not cowardly'; Fled, as some captain, in whose shaping hand Lie the momentous fortunes of his land, Sheds not vainglorious blood upon the field, Death! why at last he finds his treasure isle, And he the pirate of its hidden hoard; Life! 'twas the ship he sailed to seek it in, And Death is but the pilot come aboard, Methinks I see him smile a boy's glad smile On maddened winds and waters, reefs unknown, As thunders in the sail the dread typhoon, And in the surf the shuddering timbers groan; Horror ahead, and Death beside the wheel: Then—spreading stillness of the broad lagoon, And lap of waters round the resting keel.

Son of a race nomadic, finding still Its home in regions furthest from its home, Ranging untired the borders of the world, And resting but to roam; Loved of his land, and making all his boast The birthright of the blood from which he came, Heir to those lights that guard the Scottish coast, And caring only for a filial fame; Proud, if a poet, he was Scotsman most, And bore a Scottish name.

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ghty and lovely a dns iatn,sh ua  ders?ie ldSorsie aht eb tytuaven  oets es, P san who rodledw lfmai  ne tht sewie olwhoW ,seman  ohw nem gutht eh w si:e oF wild and lovers  seik dnA ,t ots ehsspan iothg r ei a dnvodeyel  lhts al m, Wa gleaing ttilf roop emos or fedayprd any  eurt ti si dnA atTh llte  dise  h I traeh  yltfos  ed s lovll, H o wehwmoae d eewo cn stma werm hosiI t ,ei ehromm latgn. hspiw roub tep deam?a dr ove Is Lna eil ai emaf da d eend, A theabr dni  shtre eons ure thing in lifub—eed t?hta m rO iaybet wi, inthd shardet gu tha H reeesteHm  ro,e alshI m ho wow n iT erom on teem l Death foll kind aehth sidlm  en'in w Sh g:ha swydo ihtiym nhw ew mo

Immortal! yea, dare we the word again, If aught remaineth of our mortal day, That which is written—shall it not remain? That which is sung, is it not built for aye? Faces must fade, for all their golden looks, Unless some poet them eternalise, Make live those golden looks in golden books; Death, soon or late, will quench the brightest eyes— 'Tis only what is written never dies. Yea, memories that guard like sacred gold Some sainted face, they also must grow old, Pass and forget, and think—or darest thou not!— On all the beauty that is quite forgot.

Old are the stars, and yet they still endure, Old are the flowers, yet never fail the spring: Why is the song that is so old so new, Known and yet strange each sweet small shape and hue? How may a poet thus for ever sing, Thus build his climbing music sweet and sure, As builds in stars and flowers the Eternal mind? Ah, Poet, that is yours to seek and find! Yea, yours that magisterial skill whereby God put all Heaven in a woman's eye, Nature's own mighty and mysterious art That knows to pack the whole within the part: The shell that hums the music of the sea, The little word big with Eternity, The cosmic rhythm in microcosmic things— One song the lark and one the planet sings, One kind heart beating warm in bird and tree— To hear it beat, who knew so well as he?

Strange craft of words, strange magic of the pen, Whereby the dead still talk with living men; Whereby a sentence, in its trivial scope, May centre all we love and all we hope; And in a couplet, like a rosebud furled, Lie all the wistful wonder of the world.

Virgil of prose! far distant is the day When at the mention of your heartfelt name Shall shake the head, and men, oblivious, say: 'We know him not, this master, nor his fame.' Not for so swift forgetfulness you wrought, Day upon day, with rapt fastidious pen, Turning, like precious stones, with anxious thought, This word and that again and yet again, Seeking to match its meaning with the world; Nor to the morning stars gave ears attent, That you, indeed, might ever dare to be With other praise than immortality Unworthily content.

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dear Heaven, buti  tsit ehS rpniAs dn—!ee ri W : yh , rbgitha   heavenl'tis the f srhsalf ylegni  whem arUp   ton oLgn re,e rhtirev pearing tter gli ,rednoy eeS   —!g e thy  br,deon y

(TO GRANT AND NELLIEALLEN)

AN ODE TO SPRING

Grave minstrels those,  Of deep responsive chant; But see how yonder goes,  Dew-drunk, with giddy slant, Yon Shelley-lark,  And hark! Him on the giddy brink  Of pearly heaven His fairy anvil clink.

Is it the Spring?  Or are the birds all wrong That play on flute and viol,  A thousand strong, In minstrel galleries  Of the long deep wood, Epiphanies  Of bloom and bud.

Ah, none of these  May make it plain, No image we may seek Shall match the magic of his gurgling beak.

Or watch, in fancy,  How the brimming note Falls, like a string of pearls,  From out his heavenly throat; Or like a fountain  In Hesperides, Raining its silver rain,  In gleam and chime, On backs of ivory girls—  Twice happy rhyme!

nat siit

And O the Sun!  I have no friend so generous as this Sun That comes to meet me with his big warm hands.  And O the Sky! There is no maid, how true,  Is half so chaste As the pure kiss of greening willow wands  Against the intense pale blue Of this sweet boundless overarching waste.

And many a silly thing  That hops and cheeps, And perks his tiny tail,  And sideway peeps, And flitters little wing,  Seems in his consequential way To tell of Spring.

The river warbles soft and runs  With fuller curve and sleeker line, Though on the winter-blackened hedge  Twigs of unbudding iron shine, And trampled still the river sedge.

er,e lm,   y pa  Chr The

inddisg osWhbue  fO  tan  p a mlas ty: Soft  ural pie tohcseu isvlren re gthoosme thp  pS ,hA   —mets ne llowt fo musring ht ei  s ,m tI t eh irpS!gn 9318

O Spirit of Spring,  Whose strange instinctive art Makes the bird sing,  And brings the bud again; O in my heart  Take up thy heavenly reign, And from its deeps  Draw out the hidden flower, And where it sleeps,  Throughout the winter long, O sweet mysterious power  Awake the slothful song!

February  

. ,7

!

(TO JOHN LANE)

TREE-WORSHIP

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