"The world is so full of a number of things,
I'm sure we should all be happy as kings."
~~~ Robert Louis Stevenson
Mention
Robert Louis Stevenson and someone will likely be reminded of Treasure
Island or Kidnapped, his well-known books. I've long forgotten the
details of those stories, if I ever knew them (they were boys' books).
Instead, I recall lines from Stevenson's poetry in A Child's Garden of
Verses.
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."
The Wind: "I saw you toss the kites on high, And blow the birds about the sky; And all around I heard you pass, Like
ladies' skirts across the grass."
My Shadow: "I have a little shadow that goes in and out with me, And what can be the use of him is more than I can
see."
Although
Stevenson was thirty-five when he published his garden of verses, he
wrote in a child's voice, from a child's point of view. Youngsters
easily identified with the scenes Stevenson painted with simple words.
Adults were immediately transported back to the sights, sounds,
emotions, and mysteries of childhood.
Robert
Louis Balfour Stevenson was born in Edinburgh, Scotland, on November
13, 1850. For more than a hundred years, the Stevenson men had been
successful and prosperous engineers, building lighthouses along
Scotland's coast. As a child, Robert fell ill with consumption; so much
of his schooling took place at home. The slim, brown-eyed boy had a
fanciful imagination and readily understood what he saw and felt. At
age eight, while confined to bed, he wrote and illustrated a book he
titled A History of Moses.
Attempting
to follow in his father's footsteps, Stevenson studied engineering at
Edinburgh University, but poor health and lack of interest caused him
to abandon that course of study. He then studied law and was admitted
to Scotland's bar, but rather than practice law he engaged in the
literary life, writing essays, travel sketches and short stories. His
first two books dealt with travel. An Inland Voyage, an account of his
canoe trip up the rivers of Holland, and Travels With A Donkey In
Cevennes.
At
twenty-three, after being advised by his doctor to move to a warm, dry
climate, Stevenson searched for a suitable place to live. In France, he
met and fell in love with Fanny Vandegrift Osbourne, ten years his
senior and married with two children. She returned to California to
obtain a divorce, with Stevenson following soon after. Married in 1880,
they set out to find a healthful climate. On a voyage through the Seven
Seas, Stevenson discovered that Samoa's weather suited him. There he
wrote Treasure Island, A Child's Garden of Verses, Kidnapped, and The
Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (based on a dream, and written
and published in ten weeks). He also wrote many lesser-known books,
essays and poetry.
In
dedicating A Child's Garden of Verses to his childhood nanny, Stevenson
wrote: "To Alison Cunningham from Her Boy. My second mother, my first
wife, the angel of my infant life." Although the collection was
considered a classic almost from the beginning, some of the poems were
not included in later publications.
They were thought to be too
philosophical to be understood by primary age children, more for adults
than for children. But the majority of Stevenson's verses touch on the
pleasures of childhood: the changing seasons, playing in the hayloft,
the red cow in the meadow, digging in the sand at seaside, sailing toy
boats, climbing trees, marching in a parade with pretend musical
instruments.
Given Stevenson's lifelong illness, it's not surprising
that a dozen or so of his children's verses have a bedtime theme, in
whole or part.
The
Land of Counterpane--"When I was sick and lay a-bed, I had two pillows
at my head, And all the toys beside me lay, To keep me happy all the
day." He goes on to explain about playing with lead soldiers and toy
ships, moving them into battle among the hills and valleys created in
the sheets and blankets.
Bed
in Summer--"In winter I get up at night and dress by yellow
candlelight. In summer, quite the other way, I have to go to bed by
day. I have to go to bed and see, The birds still hopping on the tree,
or hear the grown-up people's feet, Still going past me in the street."
Young
Night Thought--This verse shows a little boy's imagination after Mama
puts out the light. He sees "people marching by ... armies and emperors
and kings ... a circus on the green ... every kind of beast and man ...
until we reach the Town of Sleep."
A Good Boy--My bed is waiting cool and fresh, with linen smooth and fair, And I must off to sleepsin-by, and not forget
my prayer.
Escape At Bedtime--This verse tells of a boy's flight into the garden, where he studied the stars until ... "they
saw me at last, and they chased me with cries, and they soon had me packed into bed."
My
Bed Is A Boat, The Land of Nod, The Sun's Travels, The Lamplighter, The
Moon, Good Night, Shadow March, In Port, all speak of bedtime in some
manner, of being tucked in, of cuddling, of shadows and mysteries of
the night.
Good
health eluded Stevenson. Death came at the age of forty-four from a
brain hemorrhage. His unfinished novel, Weir of Hermiston, is
considered by many to be his finest work. The last line he wrote might
well have pertained to his sudden death. "It had seemed unprovoked, a
willful convulsion of brute nature."
Upon
his death, native Samoans hacked a path up a mountainside and carried
their friend to the top, the site he had chosen for his eternal bed.
Fourteen years earlier, when he was gravely ill in California, he had
written his epitaph: Requiem, the last three lines of which are
engraved on his tombstone.
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.
