ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON

Posted by: John Rey Q Talisaysay

SOURCES:

http://www.poetryloverspage.com/poets/stevenson/stevenson_ind.html                                                      http://www.poetryloverspage.com/poets/stevenson/about_sheltered_garden.htmlhttp://www.poetryloverspage.com/poets/stevenson/death_to_dead.htmlhttp://www.poetryloverspage.com/poets/stevenson/wind_is_without_there.html

Robert Louis Stevenson was born in Edinburgh, Scotland, on Nov. 13, 1850. His father was a prosperous civil engineer, and the boy showed interest in that profession. Later, however, he decided to study law instead. Stevenson attended the University of Edinburgh and was admitted to the bar in 1875. But he was more interested in writing. and in 1878 he published An Inland Voyage which described a canoe trip through France and Belgium. Critics recognized the grace of the young writer's style, but the public paid little attention to the sketh.In 1876, Stevenson met and fell in love with Mrs. Fanny Osbourne. Three years later, he learned that she was ill in San Francisco, and decided to go see her. He traveled as a steerage passenger and crossed the United States in the immigrant train.

After he arrived in San Francisco, Stevenson married Mrs. Osbourne. After a few months, he returned to Scotland with his wife and his new son, Lloyd. In 1879, Stevenson wrote two stories, The Amateur Emigrant and Across the Plains, which made use of his travel experiences in the U.S. The following years were wandering ones for Stevenson, spent in a long effort to find health. Yet in spite of his poor health, Stevenson wrote two collections of delightful essays between 1880 and 1888. These were Virginibus Puerisque (1881) and Familiar Studies of Men and Books (1882). He also wrote a volume of fanciful and entertaining stories, The New Arabian Nights (1882); the ever-popular Treasure Island (1883); Prince Otto (1885), a lovely romance; The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr.Hyde (1886), a story in which physical change in man symbolizes moral change;Kidnapped (1886) and The Master of Ballantre (1888), two excellent and widely read stories of Scottish life; and two collections of poems, A Child's Garden of Verses (1885), familiar to many English-speaking children, and Underwoods (1887). Stevenson's works earned him great popularity because of his clear and careful style, and his extraordinary power as a storyteller. His stories are existing, not because of exaggerations, but because they give an accurate picture of the action, and let the reader fill that he/she is seeing everything just as if he were present.In 1888, Stevenson went with his family to Samoa in the South Seas, in search of better climate for his still declining health. The people there loved him, and looked up to him. They named himtusitala, taller of tales. Stevenson died of apoplexy in 1894, when he was just 44 years old. Sixty Samoans carried his body to the top of Mount Vaea, where he was buried.

"About the Sheltered Garden Ground"

About the sheltered garden ground

The trees stand strangely still.

The vale ne'er seemed so deep before,

Nor yet so high the hill.

An awful sense of quietness,

A fulness of repose,

Breathes from the dewy garden-lawns,

The silent garden rows.

As the hoof-beats of a troop of horse

Heard far across a plain,

A nearer knowledge of great thoughts

Thrills vaguely through my brain.

I lean my head upon my arm,

My heart's too full to think;

Like the roar of seas, upon my heart

Doth the morning stillness sink.

"The Wind is Without There..."

The wind is without there and howls in the trees,

And the rain-flurries drum on the glass:

Alone by the fireside with elbows on knees

I can number the hours as they pass.

Yet now, when to cheer me the crickets begin,

And my pipe is just happily lit,

Believe me, my friend, tho' the evening draws in,

That not all uncontested I sit.

Alone, did I say?  O no, nowise alone

With the Past sitting warm on my knee,

To gossip of days that are over and gone,

But still charming to her and to me.

With much to be glad of and much to deplore,

Yet, as these days with those we compare,

Believe me, my friend, tho' the sorrows seem more

They are somehow more easy to bear.

And thou, faded Future, uncertain and frail,

As I cherish thy light in each draught,

His lamp is not more to the miner - their sail

Is not more to the crew on the raft.

For Hope can make feeble ones earnest and brave,

And, as forth thro' the years I look on,

Believe me, my friend, between this and the grave,

I see wonderful things to be done.

To do or to try; and, believe me, my friend,

If the call should come early for me,

I can leave these foundations uprooted, and tend

For some new city over the sea.

To do or to try; and if failure be mine,

And if Fortune go cross to my plan,

Believe me, my friend, tho' I mourn the design

I shall never lament for the man.

"Death, To the Dead For Evermore"

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;

Smiling, he greets us, on that tranquil shore

Where neither piping bird nor peeping dawn

Disturbs the eternal sleep,

But in the stillness far withdrawn

Our dreamless rest for evermore we keep.

For as from open windows forth we peep

Upon the night-time star beset

And with dews for ever wet;

So from this garish life the spirit peers;

And lo! as a sleeping city death outspread,

Where breathe the sleepers evenly; and lo!

After the loud wars, triumphs, trumpets, tears

And clamour of man's passion, Death appears,

And we must rise and go.

Soon are eyes tired with sunshine; soon the ears

Weary of utterance, seeing all is said;

Soon, racked by hopes and fears,

The all-pondering, all-contriving head,

Weary with all things, wearies of the years;

And our sad spirits turn toward the dead;

And the tired child, the body, longs for bed.