 ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON,
gifted in all that relates to tale-writing pure and simple, was an essayist of
perfection, and a poet who has stirred the sensibilities of the Anglo-Saxon race on their
most human side, lived less than forty-five years. He was born in Edinburgh, Scotland on
November 13, 1850. He was the only son of Thomas Stevenson, a prosperous joint-engineer
to the Board of Northern Lighthouses. He invented, among others, the marine dynamometer,
which measures the force of waves. Stevenson's grandfather was Britain's greatest builder
of lighthouses. Since childhood, Stevenson suffered from tuberculosis. During his early years,
he spent much of his time in bed, composing stories before he had learned to read.
"A Child's
Garden of Verses" (1885) was devoted to Alison Cunningham, who was Stevenson's nurse
in his childhood. The book was a success - its verses have also become popular as songs.
He died at
Vailima near Apia, in the Samoan Islands, on December 3, 1894. He had defied his
weak lungs for over forty years, but in the end it was a hemorrhage of the brain which killed him. The final words of his unfinished novel were strangely appropriate:
"It had seemed unprovoked, a wilful convulsion of brute nature......"
Fourteen years earlier, when he was very ill in California, Stevenson had composed his own
epitaph. "Requiem". By his own request, he was buried high on Mt. Vaea "under the wide
and starry sky."
Click for Requiem verse
"It was part of his genius that he never seemed
to be cramped like the rest of us at any given time of life, within the limits of his proper age,
but to be child, boy, young man and old man at all times." Sidney Colvin.
~ The Land of Nod ~
From breakfast on through all the day
At home among my friends I stay,
But every night I go abroad
Afar into the land of Nod.
All by myself I have to go,
With none to tell me what to do
All alone beside the streams
And up the mountain-sides of dreams.
The strangest things are there for me,
Both things to eat and things to see,
And many frightening sights abroad
Till morning in the land of Nod.
Try as I like to find the way,
I never can get back by day,
Nor can remember plain and clear
The curious music that I hear.
~ Pirate Story ~
Three of us afloat in the meadow by the swing,
Three of us aboard in the basket on the lea.
Winds are in the air, they are blowing in the spring,
And waves are on the meadow like the waves there are at sea.
Where shall we adventure, to-day that we're afloat,
Wary of the weather and steering by a star?
Shall it be to Africa, a-steering of the boat,
To Providence, or Babylon, or off to Malabar?
Hi! but here’s a squadron a-rowing on the sea
Cattle on the meadow a-charging with a roar!
Quick, and we’ll escape them, they’re as mad as they can be,
The wicket is the harbour and the garden is the shore.
~ The Swing ~
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,
Rivers and trees and cattle and all
Over the countryside
Till I look down on the garden green,
Down on the roof so brown
Up in the air I go flying again,
Up in the air and down!
~ Auntie's Skirts ~
Whenever Auntie moves around,
Her dresses make a curious sound,
They trail behind her up the floor,
And trundle after through the door.
~ Young Night Thoughts ~
All night long and every night,
When my mama puts out the light,
I see the people marching by,
As plain as day, before my eye.
Armies and emperors and kings,
All carrying different kinds of things,
And marching in so grand a way,
You never saw the like by day.
So fine a show was never seen
At the great circus on the green;
For every kind of beast and man
Is marching in that caravan.
At first they move a little slow,
But still the faster on they go,
And still beside them close I keep
Until we reach the town of Sleep.
Featured Music: 
"First Day Of School"
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