Contents -BIBLIOGRAPHIC RECORD

Stevenson, Robert Louis (1850–1894). A Child’s Garden of Verses and Underwoods. 1913.

XIV. To Andrew Lang

DEAR Andrew, with the brindled hair,

Who glory to have thrown in air,

High over arm, the trembling reed,

By Ale and Kail, by Till and Tweed:

An equal craft of hand you show

The pen to guide, the fly to throw:

I count you happy starred: for God,

When he with inkpot and with rod

Endowed you, bade your fortune lead

Forever by the crooks of Tweed,

Forever by the woods of song

And lands that to the Muse belong;

Or if in peopled streets, or in

The abhorred pedantic sanhedrim,

It should be yours to wander, still

Airs of the morn, airs of the hill,

The plovery Forest and the seas

That break about the Hebrides,

Should follow over field and plain

And find you at the window pane;

And you again see hill and peel,

And the bright springs gush at your heel.

So went the fiat forth, and so

Garrulous like a brook you go,

With sound of happy mirth and sheen

Of daylight—whether by the green

You fare that moment, or the grey;

Whether you dwell in March or May;

Or whether treat of reels and rods

Or of the old unhappy gods:

Still like a brook your page has shone.

And your ink sings of Helicon.