Robert Lewis Stevenson

[cbtreks]

Two today, just because! The first is from the first book of poetry I remember, A Child's Garden of Verses. I think I own three or four editions of it now.

***

Where Go the Boats

Dark brown is the river,
Golden is the sand.
It flows along for ever,
With trees on either hand.

Green leaves a-floating,
Castles of the foam,
Boats of mine a-boating--
Where will all come home?

On goes the river
And out past the mill,
Away down the valley,
Away down the hill.

Away down the river,
A hundred miles or more,
Other little children
Shall bring my boats ashore.

(by Robert Lewis Stevenson)

(I know the first and last verses as a song, which I occasionally sing as I cross the St. Joe, which is generally dark brown and is quite long.)

And one of my favorite of all poems:

Requiem

Under the wide and starry sky
Dig the grave and let me lie.
Glad did I live and gladly die,
And I laid me down with a will.

This be the verse you grave for me;
"Here he lies where he longed to be,
Home is the sailor, home from sea,
And the hunter home from the hill."

(by Robert Lewis Stevenson)