I have now published on 101 small pages The Complete Proof of Mr. R. L. Stevenson’s Incapacity to Write Verse [he refers to A Child’s Garden of Verses], in a series of graduated examples with table of contents. I think I shall issue a companion volume of exercises: ‘Analyse this poem. Collect and comminate the ugly words. Distinguish and condemn the chevilles. State Mr. Stevenson’s faults of taste in regard to the measure. What reasons can you gather from this example for your belief that Mr. S. is unable to write any other measure?’ […] They look ghastly in the cold light of print; but there is something nice in the little ragged regiment for all; the blackguards seem to me to smile, to have a kind of childish treble note that sounds in my ears freshly; not song, if you will, but a child’s voice.
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON: letter to Edmund Gosse (12 March 1885)
Stevenson’s father and grandfather were lighthouse engineers, and Robert Louis entered Edinburgh University in 1867 to read engineering. He changed to law, however, and became an advocate in 1875. While at university he contributed articles to the Edinburgh University Magazine and fell in love with the literary life. He was intensely musical, as we see from this little quoted letter, dated Edinburgh, 16 September 1873, that he wrote, aged twenty-three, to Mrs Sitwell, describing his admiration of Beethoven’s ‘Adelaide’:
I have tried to write some verses; but I find I have nothing to say that has not been already perfectly said and perfectly sung in Adelaïde. I have so perfect an idea out of that song! The great Alps, a wonder in the starlight – the river, strong from the hills, and turbulent, and loudly audible at night – the country, a scented Frühlingsgarten of orchards and deep wood where the nightingales harbour – a sort of German flavour over all – and this love-drunken man, wandering on by sleeping village and silent town, pours out of his full heart, Einst, O Wunder, einst etc. I wonder if I am wrong about this being the most beautiful and perfect thing in the world – the only marriage of really accordant words and music – both drunk with the same poignant, unutterable sentiment.
Stevenson’s wife, Fanny, once wrote (see the Tusitala Edition of Stevenson’s works) about the inspiration her husband found in music: ‘It is said that when Mr Kipling is heard humming a tune he is supposed to be composing a poem to fit the music. I think my husband must have used something of the same method, for in his library I found […] verses written out to airs that had pleased him.’
It was while on a writers’ retreat in France during 1878 that Stevenson met Mrs Fanny Osborne, an American woman ten years his senior and already married. Friendship turned to infatuation; he left Scotland to be with her and arrived in New York in August 1879. They married in 1880, and it was for her young son, Lloyd (with whom he later collaborated on The Wrong Box), that he began Treasure Island (1883). He left England in 1888 and, having sailed for a while around the Pacific Islands, settled in Samoa in an attempt to cure his illness (tuberculosis) by living in a healthier climate. Incensed at European exploitation of the islands, he gave voice to his disquiet in A Footnote to History (1892), In the South Seas (1896) and in two novellas: The Beach of Falesá (1893) and, most importantly, The Ebb-Tide (1894), a work that condemns colonial exploitation and prefigures Conrad’s Heart of Darkness (1902). His wife was by his side when he died from a cerebral haemorrhage on Samoa, and the day after his death sixty natives cut a path up the steep face of Mount Valima to dig the grave of their beloved Tusitala, the name by which he was known to the Samoan people (‘tusi’ = book, ‘tala’ = writer).
Despite his sickly constitution, Stevenson was an inveterate traveller. A canoe tour of France and Belgium was immortalized in An Inland Voyage (1878), and Travels with a Donkey in the Cevennes followed in 1879, the year in which he travelled by emigrant ship and train to California – an adventure that was published posthumously in 1895 as The Amateur Emigrant. He returned to England to live by his pen, enjoyed a public debate on literature with Henry James, whose ‘The Art of Fiction’ (1884) he answered with ‘A Humble Remonstrance’ (1884). The two became firm friends. Stevenson’s essays and short stories were collected in a number of volumes, including Virginibus Puerisque (1881) and Memories and Portraits (1887). It was, however, as a novelist that he became best known, and the eighties saw the publication of his most celebrated works: Treasure Island (1883), The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde (1886), Kidnapped (1886), The Black Arrow (1888) and The Master of Ballantrae (1889).
All the poems printed here, apart from Songs of Travel, are taken from A Child’s Garden of Verses, written while Stevenson was working on Treasure Island. He dedicated it to the nurse who cared for him during his sickly childhood, Alison Cunningham (‘Cummy’); and in 1883 he wrote her a touching letter:
I don’t know when it may be ready […] but I hope in the meantime you may like the idea of what is to be; and when the time comes, I shall try to make the dedication as pretty as I can make it. […] This little book, which is all about my childhood, should indeed go to no other person but you, who did so much to make that childhood happy.
Composers to have been drawn to these charming poems include Gurney, Hahn, Ireland, Liza Lehmann, Peel, Quilter, Somervell, Stanford and Williamson.
[Over the borders, a sin without pardon,
Breaking the branches and crawling below,
Out through the breach in the wall of the garden,
Down by the banks of the river, we go.]
Here is the mill with the humming of thunder,
Here is the weir with the wonder of foam,
Here is the sluice with the race running under –
Marvellous places, though handy to home!
Sounds of the village grow stiller and stiller,
Stiller the note of the birds on the hill;
Dusty and dim are the eyes of the miller,
Years may go by, and the wheel in the river
Wheel as it wheels for us, children, to-day,
Wheel and keep roaring and foaming for ever
Long after all of the boys are away.
Home from the Indies, and home from the ocean,
Heroes and soldiers we all shall come home;
Still we shall find the old mill-wheel in motion,
Turning and churning that river to foam.
[You with the bean that I gave when we quarrelled,
I with your marble of Saturday last,
Honoured and old and all gaily apparelled,
Here we shall meet and remember the past.]
How do you like to go up in a swing,
Up in the air so blue?
Oh, I do think it the pleasantest thing
Ever a child can do!
Up in the air and over the wall,
Till I can see so wide,
Rivers and trees and cattle and all
Over the countryside –
Till I look down on the garden green,
Down on the roof so brown –
Up in the air I go flying again,
Up in the air and down!
The opening song of Robert Louis Stevenson’s Songs of Travel, ‘The vagabond’, bears the subtitle ‘To an air of Schubert’, and perhaps it was this mention of the greatest song composer of them all that drew Vaughan Williams to Stevenson’s collection that had been published posthumously in 1896. He selected nine of Stevenson’s poems (written ‘principally in the South Seas’, as the first edition tells us), and fashioned from them a loosely knit cycle that tells the story, albeit obliquely, of a love affair, in much the same way that Schumann had chosen twenty poems from Heine’s Lyrisches Intermezzo for his own Dichterliebe. And just as Schumann had struggled to find the final form of his cycle, eventually reducing it from twenty songs to sixteen, so Vaughan Williams wrestled with the shape of what was soon to become his most successful collection of songs. The first book was published in 1905, and contained ‘The vagabond’, ‘Bright is the ring of words’ and ‘The roadside fire’ – in that order. Book Two followed in 1907 with ‘Let Beauty awake’, ‘Youth and love’, ‘In dreams’ and ‘The infinite shining heavens’. A gap of five years followed, before ‘Whither must I wander’, the first of the songs to be composed, was added. But even then the cycle was not complete, because ‘I have trod the upward and the downward slope’ was discovered among Vaughan Williams’s papers after his death, and added as an epilogue. The complete cycle was given for the first time in 1960 in the now familiar order.
Give to me the life I love,
Let the lave go by me,
Give the jolly heaven above
And the byway nigh me.
Bed in the bush with stars to see,
Bread I dip in the river –
There’s the life for a man like me,
Let the blow fall soon or late,
Let what will be o’er me;
Give the face of earth around
And the road before me.
Wealth I seek not, hope nor love,
Nor a friend to know me;
All I seek, the heaven above
And the road below me.
Or let autumn fall on me
Where afield I linger,
Silencing the bird on tree,
Biting the blue finger.
White as meal the frosty field –
Warm the fireside haven –
Not to autumn will I yield,
Not to winter even!
Let the blow fall soon or late,
Let what will be o’er me;
Give the face of earth around,
And the road before me.
Wealth I ask not, hope nor love,
Nor a friend to know me;
All I ask the heaven above
And the road below me.
Let Beauty awake in the morn from beautiful dreams,
Beauty awake from rest!
Let Beauty awake
For Beauty’s sake
In the hour when the birds awake in the brake
And the stars are bright in the west!
Let Beauty awake in the eve from the slumber of day,
Awake in the crimson eve!
In the day’s dusk end
When the shades ascend,
Let her wake to the kiss of a tender friend
To render again and receive!
I will make you brooches and toys for your delight
Of bird-song at morning and star-shine at night.
I will make a palace fit for you and me
Of green days in forests and blue days at sea.
I will make my kitchen, and you shall keep your room,
Where white flows the river and bright blows the broom,
And you shall wash your linen and keep your body white
In rainfall at morning and dewfall at night.
And this shall be for music when no one else is near,
The fine song for singing, the rare song to hear!
That only I remember, that only you admire,
Of the broad road that stretches and the roadside fire.
(Butterworth, Farrar, Gurney, Hundley, Warlock)
To the heart of youth the world is a highwayside.
Passing for ever, he fares; and on either hand,
Deep in the gardens golden pavilions hide,
Nestle in orchard bloom, and far on the level land
Call him with lighted lamp in the eventide.
Thick as the stars at night when the moon is down,
Pleasures assail him. He to his nobler fate
Fares; and but waves a hand as he passes on,
Cries but a wayside word to her at the garden gate,
Sings but a boyish stave and his face is gone.
In dreams, unhappy, I behold you stand
As heretofore:
The unremembered tokens in your hand
Avail no more.
No more the morning glow, no more the grace,
Enshrines, endears.
Cold beats the light of time upon your face
And shows your tears.
He came and went. Perchance you wept a while
And then forgot.
Ah me! but he that left you with a smile
Forgets you not.
The infinite shining heavens
Rose and I saw in the night
Uncountable angel stars
Showering sorrow and light.
I saw them distant as heaven,
Dumb and shining and dead,
And the idle stars of the night
Were dearer to me than bread.
Night after night in my sorrow
The stars stood over the sea,
Till lo! I looked in the dusk
And a star had come down to me.
Home no more home to me, whither must I wander?
Hunger my driver, I go where I must.
Cold blows the winter wind over hill and heather;
Thick drives the rain, and my roof is in the dust.
Loved of wise men was the shade of my roof-tree.
The true word of welcome was spoken in the door –
Dear days of old, with the faces in the firelight,
Kind folks of old, you come again no more.
Home was home then, my dear, full of kindly faces,
Home was home then, my dear, happy for the child.
Fire and the windows bright glittered on the moorland;
Song, tuneful song, built a palace in the wild.
Now, when day dawns on the brow of the moorland,
Lone stands the house, and the chimney-stone is cold.
Lone let it stand, now the friends are all departed,
The kind hearts, the true hearts, that loved the place of old.
Spring shall come, come again, calling up the moorfowl,
Spring shall bring the sun and rain, bring the bees and flowers;
Red shall the heather bloom over hill and valley,
Soft flow the stream through the even-flowing hours;
Fair the day shine as it shone on my childhood –
Fair shine the day on the house with open door;
Birds come and cry there and twitter in the chimney –
But I go for ever and come again no more.
Bright is the ring of words
When the right man rings them,
When the singer sings them.
Still they are carolled and said –
On wings they are carried –
After the singer is dead
And the maker buried.
Low as the singer lies
In the field of heather,
Songs of his fashion bring
The swains together.
And when the west is red
With the sunset embers,
The lover lingers and sings
And the maid remembers.
(Gurney, Peel, Warlock)
I have trod the upward and the downward slope;
I have endured and done in days before;
I have longed for all, and bid farewell to hope;
And I have lived and loved, and closed the door.
The Twins’ Tune Book, which Somervell composed for his own twin sons, Ronald and Hubert, also contains two duets: ‘Fairy song’ (Thomas Hood) and ‘How sweet is the shepherd’s sweet lot’ (William Blake).
My bed is like a little boat;
Nurse helps me in when I embark;
She girds me in my sailor’s coat
At night, I go on board and say
Good-night to all my friends on shore;
I shut my eyes and sail away
And see and hear no more.
And sometimes things to bed I take,
As prudent sailors have to do;
Perhaps a slice of wedding-cake,
Perhaps a toy or two.
All night across the dark we steer:
But when the day returns at last,
Safe in my room, beside the pier,
I find my vessel fast.
(Peel, Williamson)
I saw you toss the kites on high
And blow the birds about the sky;
And all around I heard you pass,
Like ladies’ skirts across the grass –
O wind, a-blowing all day long,
O wind, that sings so loud a song!
I saw the different things you did,
But always you yourself you hid.
I felt you push, I heard you call,
I could not see yourself at all –
O wind, a-blowing all day long,
O wind, that sings so loud a song!
O you that are so strong and cold,
O blower, are you young or old?
Are you a beast of field and tree,
Or just a stronger child than me?
O wind, a-blowing all day long,
O wind, that sings so loud a song!
Three of us afloat in the meadow by the swing,
Three of us aboard in the basket on the lea.
Winds are in the air, they are blowing in the spring,
And waves are on the meadows like the waves there are at sea.
Where shall we adventure, to-day that we’re afloat,
Wary of the weather and steering by a star?
Shall it be to Africa, a-steering of the boat,
To Providence, or Babylon, or off to Malabar?
Hi! but here’s a squadron a-rowing on the sea –
Cattle on the meadow a-charging with a roar!
Quick, and we’ll escape them, they’re as mad as they can be,
The wicket is the harbour and the garden is the shore.
In winter I get up at night
And dress by yellow candle-light.
In summer, quite the other way,
I have to go to bed by day.
I have to go to bed and see
The birds still hopping on the tree,
Or hear the grown-up people’s feet
Still going past me in the street.
And does it not seem hard to you,
When all the sky is clear and blue,
And I should like so much to play,
To have to go to bed by day?
(Ireland, Stanford)
Dark brown is the river,
Golden is the sand.
It flows along for ever,
With trees on either hand.
Green leaves a-floating,
Castles of the foam,
Boats of mine a-boating –
Where will all come home?
On goes the river
And out past the mill,
Away down the valley,
Away down the hill.
Away down the river,
A hundred miles or more,
Other little children
Shall bring my boats ashore.
(Peel, Quilter, Stanford, Williamson)
I have a little shadow that goes in and out with me,
And what can be the use of him is more than I can see.
He is very, very like me from the heels up to the head;
And I see him jump before me, when I jump into my bed.
The funniest thing about him is the way he likes to grow –
Not at all like proper children, which is always very slow;
For he sometimes shoots up taller like an india-rubber ball,
And he sometimes gets so little that there’s none of him at all.
He hasn’t got a notion of how children ought to play,
And can only make a fool of me in every sort of way.
He stays so close beside me, he’s a coward you can see;
I’d think shame to stick to nursie as that shadow sticks to me!
One morning, very early, before the sun was up,
I rose and found the shining dew on every buttercup;
But my lazy little shadow, like an arrant sleepy-head,
Had stayed at home behind me and was fast asleep in bed.
(Lehmann, Stanford)
These delightful songs, composed by Hahn at the Front during the winter of 1915, were first performed by Jane Bathori in Paris on 14 January 1916.
See above, under Lehmann.
Whenever the moon and stars are set,
Whenever the wind is high,
All night long in the dark and wet,
A man goes riding by.
Late in the night when the fires are out,
Why does he gallop and gallop about?
Whenever the trees are crying aloud,
And ships are tossed at sea,
By, on the highway, low and loud,
By at the gallop goes he.
By at the gallop he goes, and then
By he comes back at the gallop again.
(Somervell)
O it’s I that am the captain of a tidy little ship,
Of a ship that goes a-sailing on the pond;
And my ship it keeps a-turning all around and all about;
But when I’m a little older, I shall find the secret out
How to send my vessel sailing on beyond.
For I mean to grow as little as the dolly at the helm,
And the dolly I intend to come alive;
And with him beside to help me, it’s a-sailing I shall go,
It’s a-sailing on the water, when the jolly breezes blow
And the vessel goes a divie-divie-dive.
O it’s then you’ll see me sailing through the rushes and the reeds,
And you’ll hear the water singing at the prow;
For beside the dolly sailor, I’m to voyage and explore,
To land upon the island where no dolly was before,
And to fire the penny cannon in the bow.
The lights from the parlour and kitchen shone out
Through the blinds and the windows and bars;
And high overhead and all moving about,
There were thousands of millions of stars.
There ne’er were such thousands of leaves on a tree,
Nor of people in church or the Park,
As the crowds of the stars that looked down upon me,
And that glittered and winked in the dark.
The Dog, and the Plough, and the Hunter, and all,
And the star of the sailor, and Mars,
These shone in the sky, and the pail by the wall
Would be half full of water and stars.
They saw me at last, and they chased me with cries,
And they soon had me packed into bed;
But the glory kept shining and bright in my eyes,
And the stars going round in my head.
I woke before the morning, I was happy all the day,
I never said an ugly word, but smiled and stuck to play.
And now at last the sun is going down behind the wood,
And I am very happy, for I know that I’ve been good.
My bed is waiting cool and fresh, with linen smooth and fair,
And I must off to sleepsin-by, and not forget my prayer.
I know that, till tomorrow I shall see the sun arise,
No ugly dream shall fright my mind, no ugly sight my eyes.
But slumber hold me tightly till I waken in the dawn,
And hear the thrushes singing in the lilacs round the lawn.
(Quilter, Williamson)