The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition, Vol. 14

Down by a shining water well

I found a very little dell,

No higher than my head.

The heather and the gorse about

In summer bloom were coming out,

Some yellow and some red.

I called the little pool a sea;

The little hills were big to me;

For I am very small.

I made a boat, I made a town,

I searched the caverns up and down,

And named them one and all.

And all about was mine, I said,

The little sparrows overhead,

The little minnows too.

This was the world, and I was king;

For me the bees came by to sing,

For me the swallows flew.

I played there were no deeper seas,

Nor any wider plains than these,

Nor other kings than me.

At last I heard my mother call

Out from the house at even-fall,

To call me home to tea.

And I must rise and leave my dell,

And leave my dimpled water well,

And leave my heather blooms.

Alas! and as my home I neared,

How very big my nurse appeared,

How great and cool the rooms!

Summer fading, winter comes—

Frosty mornings, tingling thumbs,

Window robins, winter rooks,

And the picture story-books.

Water now is turned to stone

Nurse and I can walk upon;

Still we find the flowing brooks

In the picture story-books.

All the pretty things put by

Wait upon the children’s eye,

Sheep and shepherds, trees and crooks,

In the picture story-books.

We may see how all things are,

Seas and cities, near and far,

And the flying fairies’ looks,

In the picture story-books.

How am I to sing your praise,

Happy chimney-corner days,

Sitting safe in nursery nooks,

Reading picture story-books?

These nuts, that I keep in the back of the nest

Where all my lead soldiers are lying at rest,

Were gathered in autumn by nursie and me

In a wood with a well by the side of the sea.

This whistle we made (and how clearly it sounds!)

By the side of a field at the end of the grounds.

Of a branch of a plane, with a knife of my own,

It was nursie who made it, and nursie alone!

The stone, with the white and the yellow and grey,

We discovered I cannot tell how far away;

And I carried it back, although weary and cold,

For, though father denies it, I’m sure it is gold.

But of all of my treasures the last is the king,

For there’s very few children possess such a thing;

And that is a chisel, both handle and blade,

Which a man who was really a carpenter made.

What are you able to build with your blocks?

Castles and palaces, temples and docks.

Rain may keep raining, and others go roam,

But I can be happy and building at home.

Let the sofa be mountains, the carpet be sea,

There I’ll establish a city for me:

A kirk and a mill and a palace beside,

And a harbour as well where my vessels may ride.

Great is the palace with pillar and wall,

A sort of a tower on the top of it all,

And steps coming down in an orderly way

To where my toy vessels lie safe in the bay.

This one is sailing and that one is moored:

Hark to the song of the sailors on board!

And see, on the steps of my palace, the kings

Coming and going with presents and things!

Now I have done with it, down let it go!

All in a moment the town is laid low.

Block upon block lying scattered and free,

What is there left of my town by the sea?

Yet, as I saw it, I see it again,

The kirk and the palace, the ships and the men,

And as long as I live, and where’er I may be,

I’ll always remember my town by the sea.

At evening when the lamp is lit,

Around the fire my parents sit;

They sit at home and talk and sing,

And do not play at anything.

Now, with my little gun, I crawl

All in the dark along the wall,

And follow round the forest track

Away behind the sofa back.

There, in the night, where none can spy,

All in my hunter’s camp I lie,

And play at books that I have read

Till it is time to go to bed.

These are the hills, these are the woods,

These are my starry solitudes;

And there the river by whose brink

The roaring lions come to drink.

I see the others far away

As if in firelit camp they lay,

And I, like to an Indian scout,

Around their party prowled about

So, when my nurse comes in for me,

Home I return across the sea,

And go to bed with backward looks

At my dear land of Story-books.

The lamps now glitter down the street;

Faintly sound the falling feet;

And the blue even slowly falls

About the garden trees and walls.

Now in the falling of the gloom

The red fire paints the empty room:

And warmly on the roof it looks,

And flickers on the backs of books.

Armies march by tower and spire

Of cities blazing, in the fire;—

Till as I gaze with staring eyes,

The armies fade, the lustre dies.

Then once again the glow returns;

Again the phantom city burns;

And down the red-hot valley, lo!

The phantom armies marching go!

Blinking embers, tell me true

Where are those armies marching to,

And what the burning city is

That crumbles in your furnaces!

When at home alone I sit

And am very tired of it,

I have just to shut my eyes

To go sailing through the skies—

To go sailing far away

To the pleasant Land of Play;

To the fairy land afar

Where the Little People are;

Where the clover-tops are trees,

And the rain-pools are the seas,

And the leaves like little ships

Sail about on tiny trips;

And above the daisy tree

Through the grasses,

High o’erhead the Bumble Bee

Hums and passes.

In that forest to and fro

I can wander, I can go;

See the spider and the fly,

And the ants go marching by

Carrying parcels with their feet

Down the green and grassy street.

I can in the sorrel sit

Where the ladybird alit.

I can climb the jointed grass;

And on high

See the greater swallows pass

In the sky,

And the round sun rolling by

Heeding no such things as I.

Through that forest I can pass

Till, as in a looking-glass,

Humming fly and daisy tree

And my tiny self I see

Painted very clear and neat

On the rain-pool at my feet.

Should a leaflet come to land

Drifting near to where I stand,

Straight I’ll board that tiny boat

Round the rain-pool sea to float.

Little thoughtful creatures sit

On the grassy coasts of it;

Little things with lovely eyes

See me sailing with surprise.

Some are clad in armour green—

(These have sure to battle been!)—

Some are pied with ev’ry hue,

Black and crimson, gold and blue;

Some have wings and swift are gone;—

But they all look kindly on.

When my eyes I once again

Open and see all things plain;

High bare walls, great bare floor;

Great big knobs on drawer and door;

Great big people perched on chairs,

Stitching tucks and mending tears,

Each a hill that I could climb,

And talking nonsense all the time—

O dear me,

That I could be

A sailor on the rain-pool sea,

A climber in the clover-tree,

And just come back, a sleepy-head,

Late at night to go to bed.

When the golden day is done,

Through the closing portal,

Child and garden, flower and sun,

Vanish all things mortal.

As the blinding shadows fall,

As the rays diminish,

Under evening’s cloak, they all

Roll away and vanish.

Garden darkened, daisy shut,

Child in bed, they slumber—

Glow-worm in the highway rut,

Mice among the lumber.

In the darkness houses shine,

Parents move with candles;

Till on all the night divine

Turns the bedroom handles.

Till at last the day begins

In the east a-breaking,

In the hedges and the whins

Sleeping birds a-waking.

In the darkness shapes of things,

Houses, trees, and hedges,

Clearer grow; and sparrows’ wings

Beat on window ledges.

These shall wake the yawning maid;

She the door shall open—

Finding dew on garden glade

And the morning broken.

There my garden grows again

Green and rosy painted,

As at eve behind the pane

From my eyes it fainted.

Just as it was shut away,

Toy-like, in the even,

Here I see it glow with day

Under glowing heaven.

Every path and every plot,

Every bush of roses,

Every blue forget-me-not

Where the dew reposes,

“Up!” they cry, “the day is come

On the smiling valleys:

We have beat the morning drum;

Playmate, join your allies!”

Birds all the sunny day

Flutter and quarrel,

Here in the arbour-like

Tent of the laurel.

Here in the fork

The brown nest is seated;

Four little blue eggs

The mother keeps heated.

While we stand watching her,

Staring like gabies,

Safe in each egg are the

Bird’s little babies.

Soon the frail eggs they shall

Chip, and upspringing

Make all the April woods

Merry with singing.

Younger than we are,

O children, and frailer,

Soon in blue air they’ll be,

Singer and sailor.

We, so much older,

Taller and stronger,

We shall look down on the

Birdies no longer.

They shall go flying

With musical speeches

High overhead in the

Tops of the beeches.

In spite of our wisdom

And sensible talking,

We on our feet must go

Plodding and walking.

All the names I know from nurse:

Gardener’s garters, Shepherd’s purse,

Bachelor’s buttons, Lady’s smock,

And the Lady Hollyhock.

Fairy places, fairy things,

Fairy woods where the wild bee wings,

Tiny trees for tiny dames—

These must all be fairy names!

Tiny woods below whose boughs

Shady fairies weave a house;

Tiny tree-tops, rose or thyme,

Where the braver fairies climb!

Fair are grown-up people’s trees,

But the fairest woods are these;

Where if I were not so tall,

I should live for good and all.

Great is the sun, and wide he goes

Through empty heaven without repose;

And in the blue and glowing days

More thick than rain he showers his rays.

Though closer still the blinds we pull

To keep the shady parlour cool,

Yet he will find a chink or two

To slip his golden fingers through.

The dusty attic, spider-clad,

He, through the keyhole, maketh glad;

And through the broken edge of tiles

Into the laddered hayloft smiles.

Meantime his golden face around

He bares to all the garden ground,

And sheds a warm and glittering look

Among the ivy’s inmost nook.

Above the hills, along the blue,

Round the bright air with footing true,

To please the child, to paint the rose,

The gardener of the World, he goes.

When the grass was closely mown,

Walking on the lawn alone,

In the turf a hole I found

And hid a soldier underground.

Spring and daisies came apace;

Grasses hide my hiding-place;

Grasses run like a green sea

O’er the lawn up to my knee.

Under grass alone he lies,

Looking up with leaden eyes,

Scarlet coat and pointed gun,

To the stars and to the sun.

When the grass is ripe like grain,

When the scythe is stoned again,

When the lawn is shaven clear,

Then my hole shall reappear.

I shall find him, never fear,

I shall find my grenadier;

But, for all that’s gone and come,

I shall find my soldier dumb.

He has lived, a little thing,

In the grassy woods of spring;

Done, if he could tell me true,

Just as I should like to do.

He has seen the starry hours

And the springing of the flowers;

And the fairy things that pass

In the forests of the grass.

In the silence he has heard

Talking bee and ladybird,

And the butterfly has flown

O’er him as he lay alone.

Not a word will he disclose,

Not a word of all he knows.

I must lay him on the shelf,

And make up the tale myself.

In the other gardens

And all up the vale,

From the autumn bonfires

See the smoke trail!

Pleasant summer over,

And all the summer flowers,

The red fire blazes,

The grey smoke towers.

Sing a song of seasons!

Something bright in all!

Flowers in the summer,

Fires in the fall!

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.

Away behind the currant row

Where no one else but cook may go,

Far in the plots, I see him dig,

Old and serious, brown and big.

He digs the flowers, green, red, and blue,

Nor wishes to be spoken to.

He digs the flowers and cuts the hay,

And never seems to want to play.

Silly gardener! summer goes,

And winter comes with pinching toes,

When in the garden bare and brown

You must lay your barrow down.

Well now, and while the summer stays,

To profit by these garden days,

O how much wiser you would be

To play at Indian wars with me!

Dear Uncle Jim, this garden ground,

That now you smoke your pipe around,

Has seen immortal actions done

And valiant battles lost and won.

Here we had best on tip-toe tread,

While I for safety march ahead,

For this is that enchanted ground

Where all who loiter slumber sound.

Here is the sea, here is the sand,

Here is simple Shepherd’s Land,

Here are the fairy hollyhocks,

And there are Ali Baba’s rocks.

But yonder, see! apart and high,

Frozen Siberia lies; where I,

With Robert Bruce and William Tell,

Was bound by an enchanter’s spell.

There, then, a while in chains we lay,

In wintry dungeons, far from day;

But ris’n at length, with might and main,

Our iron fetters burst in twain.

Then all the horns were blown in town;

And, to the ramparts clanging down,

All the giants leaped to horse

And charged behind us through the gorse.

On we rode, the others and I,

Over the mountains blue, and by

The Silver River, the sounding sea,

And the robber woods of Tartary.

A thousand miles we galloped fast,

And down the witches’ lane we passed,

And rode amain, with brandished sword,

Up to the middle, through the ford.

Last we drew rein—a weary three—

Upon the lawn, in time for tea,

And from our steeds alighted down

Before the gates of Babylon.

If two may read aright

These rhymes of old delight

And house and garden play,

You two, my cousins, and you only, may.

You in a garden green

With me were king and queen,

Were hunter, soldier, tar,

And all the thousand things that children are.

Now in the elders’ seat

We rest with quiet feet,

And from the window-bay

We watch the children, our successors, play.

“Time was,” the golden head

Irrevocably said;

But time which none can bind,

While flowing fast away, leaves love behind.

You too, my mother, read my rhymes

For love of unforgotten times,

And you may chance to hear once more

The little feet along the floor.

Chief of our aunts—not only I,

But all your dozen of nurslings cry—

What did the other children do?

And what were childhood, wanting you?

The red room with the giant bed

Where none but elders lay their head;

The little room where you and I

Did for a while together lie,

And, simple suitor, I your hand

In decent marriage did demand;

The great day-nursery, best of all,

With pictures pasted on the wall

And leaves upon the blind—

A pleasant room wherein to wake

And hear the leafy garden shake

And rustle in the wind—

And pleasant there to lie in bed

And see the pictures overhead—

The wars about Sebastopol,

The grinning guns along the wall,

The daring escalade,

The plunging ships, the bleating sheep,

The happy children ankle-deep,

And laughing as they wade:

All these are vanished clean away,

And the old manse is changed to-day;

It wears an altered face

And shields a stranger race.

The river, on from mill to mill,

Flows past our childhood’s garden still;

But ah! we children never more

Shall watch it from the water-door!

Below the yew—it still is there—

Our phantom voices haunt the air

As we were still at play,

And I can hear them call and say:

“How far is it to Babylon?”

Ah, far enough, my dear,

Far, far enough from here—

Yet you have farther gone!

“Can I get there by candlelight?”

So goes the old refrain.

I do not know—perchance you might—

But only, children, hear it right,

Ah, never to return again!

The eternal dawn, beyond a doubt,

Shall break on hill and plain,

And put all stars and candles out,

Ere we be young again.

To you in distant India, these

I send across the seas,

Nor count it far across.

For which of us forgets

The Indian cabinets,

The bones of antelope, the wings of albatross,

The pied and painted birds and beans,

The junks and bangles, beads and screens,

The gods and sacred bells,

And the loud-humming, twisted shells?

The level of the parlour floor

Was honest, homely, Scottish shore;

But when we climbed upon a chair,

Behold the gorgeous East was there!

Be this a fable; and behold

Me in the parlour as of old,

And Minnie just above me set

In the quaint Indian cabinet!

Smiling and kind, you grace a shelf

Too high for me to reach myself.

Reach down a hand, my dear, and take

These rhymes for old acquaintance’ sake.

Some day soon this rhyming volume, if you learn with proper speed,

Little Louis Sanchez, will be given you to read.

Then shall you discover that your name was printed down

By the English printers, long before, in London town.

In the great and busy city where the East and West are met,

All the little letters did the English printer set;

While you thought of nothing, and were still too young to play,

Foreign people thought of you in places far away.

Ay, and while you slept, a baby, over all the English lands

Other little children took the volume in their hands;

Other children questioned, in their homes across the seas:

Who was little Louis, won’t you tell us, mother, please?

2

Now that you have spelt your lesson, lay it down and go and play,

Seeking shells and seaweed on the sands of Monterey,

Watching all the mighty whalebones, lying buried by the breeze,

Tiny sandy-pipers, and the huge Pacific seas.

And remember in your playing, as the sea-fog rolls to you,

Long ere you could read it, how I told you what to do;

And that while you thought of no one, nearly half the world away

Some one thought of Louis on the beach of Monterey!

As from the house your mother sees

You playing round the garden trees,

So you may see, if you will look

Through the windows of this book,

Another child, far, far away,

And in another garden, play.

But do not think you can at all,

By knocking on the window, call

That child to hear you. He intent

Is all on his play-business bent.

He does not hear; he will not look,

Not yet be lured out of this book.

For, long ago, the truth to say,

He has grown up and gone away,

And it is but a child of air

That lingers in the garden there.

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!

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 selfsame way—

The selfsame 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.

On the great streams the ships may go

About men’s business to and fro.

But I, the egg-shell pinnace, sleep

On crystal waters ankle-deep:

I, whose diminutive design,

Of sweeter cedar, pithier pine,

Is fashioned on so frail a mould,

A hand may launch, a hand withhold:

I, rather, with the leaping trout

Wind, among lilies, in and out;

I, the unnamed, inviolate,

Green, rustic rivers navigate;

My dipping paddle scarcely shakes

The berry in the bramble-brakes;

Still forth on my green way I wend

Beside the cottage garden-end;

And by the nested angler fare,

And take the lovers unaware.

By willow wood and water-wheel

Speedily fleets my touching keel;

By all retired and shady spots

Where prosper dim forget-me-nots;

By meadows where at afternoon

The growing maidens troop in June

To loose their girdles on the grass.

Ah! speedier than before the glass

The backward toilet goes; and swift

As swallows quiver, robe and shift

And the rough country stockings lie

Around each young divinity.

When, following the recondite brook,

Sudden upon this scene I look,

And light with unfamiliar face

On chaste Diana’s bathing-place,

Loud ring the hills about and all

The shallows are abandoned....

It is the season now to go

About the country high and low,

Among the lilacs hand in hand,

And two by two in fairyland.

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.

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 from 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.

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 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 (to dress

The tinier birds) 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, Hyères.

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 (unhappy I that sing

Laid by a while upon the shelf)

Because I would not send a thing

Less charming than you are yourself.

And happier than I, alas!

(Dumb thing, I envy its delight)

’Twill wish you well, the looking-glass,

And look you in the face to-night.

1869.