The Vagabond -- Robert Louis Stevenson

(Poem #780) The Vagabond 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, There's the life for ever. 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. -- Robert Louis Stevenson

 From "Songs of Travel and Other Verses", published in 1896.
 Meant to be sung "to an air of Schubert", though I don't know which one.

Robert Louis Stevenson's verse - energetic, enthusiastic and exciting - is
in many ways reminiscent of his prose, and like his prose, it's always fun
to read. Readers looking for profound insight or gut-wrenching emotion are
likely to be disappointed; equally, though, readers looking for metrical
felicity and magical atmospherics are likely to be enchanted.

I often think of Stevenson as a mixture of Walter de la Mare and John
Masefield: the former for his command of atmosphere, and the latter for his
wanderlust. The romance of the open road plays a significant role in
Stevenson's writings, yet it's always tempered with a sense of the beauty of
stillness, of silence. And while RLS cannot (in all honesty) hold a candle
to either de la Mare or Masefield, in many respects he does not miss by
much: his poems rarely fail to capture the imagination, and, having captured
it, to take it to places it's rarely seen before.

thomas.

PS. A quick comment on form: note how the steady rhythm of the hexameter
drives this poem on, and gives it a vigour befitting its subject. Nicely
done.

[Links]

Stevenson poems on the Minstrels:
Poem #20, "Requiem"
Poem #84, "From a Railway Carriage"
Poem #290, "Bed in Summer"
Poem #450, "Auntie's Skirts"
The first of these has a biography and some critical information.

Walter de la Mare:
Poem #2, "The Listeners"
Poem #272, "Napoleon"
Poem #484, "Brueghel's Winter"
Poem #725, "Silver"

John Masefield:
Poem #27, "Sea Fever"
Poem #74, "Cargoes"
Poem #555, "Trade Winds"
Poem #695, "Beauty"
Poem #702, "Night is on the Downland"
Poem #758, "Sea-Change"

The Poet's Corner has many more poems by RLS, including the complete text of
"Songs of Travel" [1] and of "A Child's Garden of Verses" [2].

[1] [broken link] http://www.geocities.com/~spanoudi/poems/rls04.html
[2] [broken link] http://www.geocities.com/~spanoudi/poems/rls01.html