Read Ebook: Underwoods by Stevenson Robert Louis

Font size: 10 px 15 px 20 px 25 px 30 px 35 px

Background color: BlackWhiteGrayLight GrayDark GrayDim Gray

Text color: BlackWhiteGrayLight GrayDark GrayDim Gray

Apply/Save settings

Ebook has 280 lines and 14704 words, and 6 pages

Underwoods

by Robert Louis Stevenson

February, 1996

Underwoods

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!

DEDICATION

THERE are 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 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 many quarters 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 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.

NOTE

THE human 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." 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 are rocks ahead. Thus, if I wish the diphthong OU to have its proper value, I may write OOR instead of OUR; many have done so and lived, and the pillars of the universe remained unshaken. But if I did so, and came presently to DOUN, which is the classical Scots spelling of the English DOWN, I should begin to feel uneasy; and if I went on a little farther, and came to a classical Scots word, like STOUR or DOUR or CLOUR, 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, and to 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 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.

I - ENVOY

Go, little book, and wish to all Flowers 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!

II - A SONG OF THE ROAD

The gauger walked with willing foot, And aye the gauger played the flute; And what should Master Gauger play But OVER THE HILLS AND FAR AWAY?

Whene'er I buckle on my pack And 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 you It is the tune to travel to.

For who would gravely set his face To go to this or t'other place? There's nothing under Heav'n so blue That'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 hie The travelling mountains of the sky. Or let the streams in civil mode Direct 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 day OVER THE HILLS AND FAR AWAY!

Forest of Montargis, 1878

It is the season now to go About 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 brook To 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 sighs Or stand and marry silent eyes.

And he to her a hero is And sweeter she than primroses; Their common silence dearer far Than nightingale and mavis are.

Now when they sever wedded hands, Joy trembles in their bosom-strands And lovely laughter leaps and falls Upon their lips in madrigals.

V - THE HOUSE BEAUTIFUL

A NAKED HOUSE, A NAKED MOOR, A SHIVERING POOL BEFORE THE DOOR, A GARDEN BARE OF FLOWERS AND FRUIT AND POPLARS AT THE GARDEN FOOT: SUCH IS THE PLACE THAT I LIVE IN, BLEAK WITHOUT AND BARE WITHIN.

Yet shall your ragged moor receive The incomparable pomp of eve, And the cold glories of the dawn Behind your shivering trees be drawn; And when the wind front place to place Doth the unmoored cloud-galleons chase, Your garden gloom and gleam again, With leaping sun, with glancing rain. Here shall the wizard moon ascend The heavens, in the crimson end Of day's declining splendour; here The army of the stars appear. The neighbour hollows dry or wet, Spring shall with tender flowers beset; And oft the morning muser see Larks rising from the broomy lea, And every fairy wheel and thread Of cobweb dew-bediamonded. When daisies go, shall winter time Silver the simple grass with rime; Autumnal frosts enchant the pool And 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 device Of days and seasons doth suffice.

VI - A VISIT FROM THE SEA

Far from the loud sea beaches Where he goes fishing and crying, Here in the inland garden Why 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 water And quiet among the rushes; This is no home for the sea-gull But 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 ledges The white gulls are trooping and crying, Here among the rooks and roses, Why is the sea-gull flying?

Friend, in my mountain-side demesne My plain-beholding, rosy, green And 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 soul Of the capacious salad bowl. Let thyme the mountaineer and wading cress, The lover of the shallow brook, From all my plots and borders look.

Nor crisp and ruddy radish, nor Pease-cods for the child's pinafore Be lacking; nor of salad clan The last and least that ever ran About great nature's garden-beds. Nor thence be missed the speary heads Of artichoke; nor thence the bean That gathered innocent and green Outsavours the belauded pea.

These tend, I prithee; and for me, Thy most long-suffering master, bring In April, when the linnets sing And the days lengthen more and more At sundown to the garden door. And I, being provided thus. Shall, with superb asparagus, A book, a taper, and a cup Of country wine, divinely sup.

La Solitude, Hyeres

A picture-frame for you to fill, A paltry setting for your face, A thing that has no worth until You lend it something of your grace

I send Because I would not send a thing Less charming than you are yourself.

And happier than I, alas! 'Twill wish you well, the looking-glass, And look you in the face to-night.

A lover, of the moorland bare And 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 counterscarp In our ungenial, native north - You put your frosted wildings forth, And on the heath, afar from man, A strong and bitter virgin ran.

Share on: WhatsApp @Hash Facebook Tweet