Some one thought of Louis on the beach of Monterey!

  TO ANY READER

  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,

  Nor 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.

  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!

  This collection of poems was published in 1887 and comprises two books, Book I with 38 poems in English, Book II with 16 poems in Scots.

  CONTENTS

  DEDICATION

  BOOK I

  ENVOY

  A SONG OF THE ROAD

  THE CANOE SPEAKS

  THE HOUSE BEAUTIFUL

  A VISIT FROM THE SEA

  TO A GARDENER

  TO MINNIE

  TO K. de M.

  TO N. V. de G. S.

  TO WILL. H. LOW

  TO MRS. WILL. H. LOW

  TO H. F. BROWN

  TO ANDREW LANG

  ET TU IN ARCADIA VIXISTI

  TO W.E. HENLEY

  HENRY JAMES

  THE MIRROR SPEAKS

  KATHARINE

  TO F. J. S.

  REQUIEM

  THE CELESTIAL SURGEON

  OUR LADY OF THE SNOWS

  THE SICK CHILD

  IN MEMORIAM F.A.S.

  TO MY FATHER

  IN THE STATES

  A PORTRAIT

  A CAMP

  THE COUNTRY OF THE CAMISARDS

  SKERRYVORE

  SKERRYVORE

  THE PARALLEL

  BOOK II

  IN SCOTS

  TABLE OF COMMON SCOTTISH VOWEL SOUNDS

  THE MAKER TO POSTERITY

  ILLE TERRARUM

  A MILE AN’ A BITTOCK

  A LOWDEN SABBATH MORN

  THE SPAEWIFE

  THE BLAST —

  THE COUNTERBLAST —

  THE COUNTERBLAST IRONICAL

  THEIR LAUREATE TO AN ACADEMY CLASS

  DINNER CLUB

  EMBRO HIE KIRK

  THE SCOTSMAN’S RETURN FROM ABROAD

  IN A LETTER FROM MR. THOMSON TO MR. JOHNSTONE

  MY CONSCIENCE!

  TO DOCTOR JOHN BROWN

  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; rarelier still, the clergyman; the physician almost as a rule. He is the flower (such as it is) 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 (which has thus its pleasant side) 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.

  BOOK I

  IN ENGLISH

  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 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, .

  III

  THE CANOE SPEAKS

  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....

  IV

  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.

  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 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.

  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 rooks and roses,

  Why is the sea-gull flying?

  VII

  TO A GARDENER

  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.

  VIII

  TO MINNIE

  (WITH A HAND-GLASS)

  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.

  .

  IX

  TO K. de M.

  A lover of the moorland bare

  And honest country winds you were;

  The silver-skimming rain you took;

  And love 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.

  The berry ripened keeps the rude

  And racy flavour of the wood.

  And you that loved the empty plain

  All redolent of wind and rain,

  Around you still the curlew sings —

  The freshness of the weather clings —

  The maiden jewels of the rain

  Sit in your dabbled locks again.

  X

  TO N. V. de G. S.

  The unfathomable sea, and time, and tears,

  The deeds of heroes and the crimes of kings

  Dispart us; and the river of events

  Has, for an age of years, to east and west

  More widely borne our cradles. Thou to me

  Art foreign, as when seamen at the dawn

  Descry a land far off, and know not which.

  So I approach uncertain; so I cruise

  Round thy mysterious islet, and behold

  Surf and great mountains and loud river-bars,

  And from the shore hear inland voices call.

  Strange is the seaman’s heart; he hopes, he fears;

  Draws closer and sweeps wider from that coast;

  Last, his rent sail refits, and to the deep

  His shattered prow uncomforted puts back.

  Yet as he goes he ponders at the helm

  Of that bright island; where he feared to touch,

  His spirit re-adventures; and for years,

  Where by his wife he slumbers safe at home,

  Thoughts of that land revisit him; he sees

  The eternal mountains beckon, and awakes

  Yearning for that far home that might have been.

  XI

  TO WILL. H. LOW

  Youth now flees on feathered foot,

  Faint and fainter sounds the flute,

  Rarer songs of gods; and still

  Somewhere on the sunny hill,

  Or along the winding stream,

  Through the willows, flits a dream;

  Flits but shows a smiling face,

  Flees, but with so quaint a grace,

  None can choose to stay at home,

  All must follow, all must roam.

  This is unborn beauty: she

  Now in air floats high and free.

  Takes the sun and makes the blue; —

  Late with stooping pinion flew

  Raking hedgerow trees, and wet

  Her wing in silver streams, and set

  Shining foot on temple roof:

  Now again she flies aloof,

  Coasting mountain clouds and kiss’t

  By the evening’s amethyst.

  In wet wood and miry lane,

  Still we pant and pound in vain;

  Still with leaden foot we chase

  Waning pinion, fainting face;

  Still with grey hair we stumble on,

  Till, behold, the vision gone!