Famous Stevenson Poems by Famous Poets
These are examples of famous Stevenson poems written by some of the greatest and most-well-known modern and classical poets. PoetrySoup is a great educational poetry resource of famous stevenson poems. These examples illustrate what a famous stevenson poem looks like and its form, scheme, or style (where appropriate).
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by
Robert Louis Stevenson
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,
River and trees and cattle and all
Over the countryside--
Till I look down on the...Read more of this...
by
Robert Louis Stevenson
MEN are Heaven's piers; they evermore
Unwearying bear the skyey floor;
Man's theatre they bear with ease,
Unfrowning cariatides!
I, for my wife, the sun uphold,
Or, dozing, strike the seasons cold.
She, on her side, in fairy-wise
Deals in diviner mysteries,
By spells to make the fuel burn
And keep the parlour warm, to turn
Water to wine, and stones to bread,
By her unconquered hero-head.
A naked Adam, naked...Read more of this...
by
Robert Louis Stevenson
LET love go, if go she will.
Seek not, O fool, her wanton flight to stay.
Of all she gives and takes away
The best remains behind her still.
The best remains behind; in vain
Joy she may give and take again,
Joy she may take and leave us pain,
If yet she leave behind
The constant mind
To meet all fortunes nobly, to endure
All things with a...Read more of this...
by
Robert Louis Stevenson
I SEND to you, commissioners,
A paper that may please ye, sirs
(For troth they say it might be worse
An' I believe't)
And on your business lay my curse
Before I leav't.
I thocht I'd serve wi' you, sirs, yince,
But I've thocht better of it since;
The maitter I will nowise mince,
But tell ye true:
I'll service wi' some ither prince,
An' no wi' you.
I've no been...Read more of this...
by
Robert Louis Stevenson
LOVE - what is love? A great and aching heart;
Wrung hands; and silence; and a long despair.
Life - what is life? Upon a moorland bare
To see love coming and see love depart....Read more of this...
by
Robert Louis Stevenson
SINCE thou hast given me this good hope, O God,
That while my footsteps tread the flowery sod
And the great woods embower me, and white dawn
And purple even sweetly lead me on
From day to day, and night to night, O God,
My life shall no wise miss the light of love;
But ever climbing, climb above
Man's one poor star, man's supine lands,
Into...Read more of this...
by
Robert Louis Stevenson
COME, my little children, here are songs for you;
Some are short and some are long, and all, all are new.
You must learn to sing them very small and clear,
Very true to time and tune and pleasing to the ear.
Mark the note that rises, mark the notes that fall,
Mark the time when broken, and the swing of it all.
So when...Read more of this...
by
Robert Louis Stevenson
WOULDST thou be free? I think it not, indeed;
But if thou wouldst, attend this simple rede:
When quite contented }thou canst dine at home
Thou shall be free when }
And drink a small wine of the march of Rome;
When thou canst see unmoved thy neighbour's plate,
And wear my threadbare toga in the gate;
When thou hast learned to love a small abode,
And...Read more of this...
by
Robert Louis Stevenson
The friendly cow all red and white,
I love with all my heart:
She gives me cream with all her might,
To eat with apple-tart.
She wanders lowing here and there,
And yet she cannot stray,
All in the pleasant open air,
The pleasant light of day;
And blown by all the winds that pass
And wet with all...Read more of this...
by
Robert Louis Stevenson
THE wind may blaw the lee-gang way
And aye the lift be mirk an' gray,
An deep the moss and steigh the brae
Where a' maun gang -
There's still an hoor in ilka day
For luve and sang.
And canty hearts are strangely steeled.
By some dikeside they'll find a bield,
Some couthy neuk by muir or field
They're sure to hit,
Where, frae the blatherin' wind concealed,
They'll...Read more of this...
by
Robert Louis Stevenson
THEY tell me, lady, that to-day
On that unknown Australian strand -
Some time ago, so far away -
Another lady joined the band.
She joined the company of those
Lovelily dowered, nobly planned,
Who, smiling, still forgive their foes
And keep their friends in close command.
She, lady, as I learn, was one
Among the many rarely good;
And destined still to be a sun
Through every dark and...Read more of this...
by
Robert Louis Stevenson
LOOK round: You see a little supper room;
But from my window, lo! great Caesar's tomb!
And the great dead themselves, with jovial breath
Bid you be merry and remember death....Read more of this...
by
Robert Louis Stevenson
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...Read more of this...
by
Robert Louis Stevenson
O CHIEF director of the growing race,
Of Rome the glory and of Rome the grace,
Me, O Quintilian, may you not forgive
Before from labour I make haste to live?
Some burn to gather wealth, lay hands on rule,
Or with white statues fill the atrium full.
The talking hearth, the rafters sweet with smoke,
Live fountains and rough grass, my line invoke:
A sturdy slave,...Read more of this...
by
Robert Louis Stevenson
WHEN loud by landside streamlets gush,
And clear in the greenwood quires the thrush,
With sun on the meadows
And songs in the shadows
Comes again to me
The gift of the tongues of the lea,
The gift of the tongues of meadows.
Straightway my olden heart returns
And dances with the dancing burns;
It sings with the sparrows;
To the rain and the (grimy) barrows
Sings my heart aloud...Read more of this...
by
Robert Louis Stevenson
WHEN my young lady has grown great and staid,
And in long raiment wondrously arrayed,
She may take pleasure with a smile to know
How she delighted men-folk long ago.
For her long after, then, this tale I tell
Of the two fans and fairy Rosabelle.
Hot was the day; her weary sire and I
Sat in our chairs companionably nigh,
Each with a headache sat her...Read more of this...
by
Robert Louis Stevenson
NOW in the sky
And on the hearth of
Now in a drawer the direful cane,
That sceptre of the . . . reign,
And the long hawser, that on the back
Of Marsyas fell with many a whack,
Twice hardened out of Scythian hides,
Now sleep till the October ides....Read more of this...
by
Robert Louis Stevenson
SINCE years ago for evermore
My cedar ship I drew to shore;
And to the road and riverbed
And the green, nodding reeds, I said
Mine ignorant and last farewell:
Now with content at home I dwell,
And now divide my sluggish life
Betwixt my verses and my wife:
In vain; for when the lamp is lit
And by the laughing fire I sit,
Still with the tattered atlas...Read more of this...
by
Robert Louis Stevenson
Birds all the summer day
Flutter and quarrel
Here in the arbour-like
Tent of the laurel.
Here in the fork
The brown nest is seated;
For 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...Read more of this...
by
Robert Louis Stevenson
Great is the sun, and wide he goes
Through empty heaven with 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...Read more of this...
by
Robert Louis Stevenson
When I am grown to man's estate
I shall be very proud and great,
And tell the other girls and boys
Not to meddle with my toys....Read more of this...
by
Robert Louis Stevenson
The sun is not a-bed, when I
At night upon my pillow lie;
Still round the earth his way he takes,
And morning after morning makes.
While here at home, in shining day,
We round the sunny garden play,
Each little Indian sleepy-head
Is being kissed and put to bed.
And when at eve I rise from tea,
Day...Read more of this...
by
Robert Louis Stevenson
LONG TIME I LAY IN LITTLE EASE
LONG time I lay in little ease
Where, placed by the Turanian,
Marseilles, the many-masted, sees
The blue Mediterranean.
Now songful in the hour of sport,
Now riotous for wages,
She camps around her ancient port,
As ancient of the ages.
Algerian airs through all the place
Unconquerably sally;
Incomparable women pace
The shadows of the alley.
And high o'er dark and graving yard
And where...Read more of this...
by
Robert Louis Stevenson
O NEPOS, twice my neigh(b)our (since at home
We're door by door, by Flora's temple dome;
And in the country, still conjoined by fate,
Behold our villas standing gate by gate),
Thou hast a daughter, dearer far than life -
Thy image and the image of thy wife.
Thy image and thy wife's, and be it so!
But why for her, { neglect the flowing }...Read more of this...
by
Robert Louis Stevenson
LO! in thine honest eyes I read
The auspicious beacon that shall lead,
After long sailing in deep seas,
To quiet havens in June ease.
Thy voice sings like an inland bird
First by the seaworn sailor heard;
And like road sheltered from life's sea
Thine honest heart is unto me....Read more of this...
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