In Memoriam F. A. S.

Robert Louis Stevenson (1850–1894)

YET, O stricken heart, remember, O remember

How of human days he lived the better part.

April came to bloom and never dim December

Breathed its killing chills upon the head or heart.

Doomed to know not winter, only spring, a being

Trod the flowery April blithely for a while,

Took his fill of music, joy of thought and seeing,

Came and stayed and went, nor ever ceased to smile.

Came and stayed and went, and now when all is finished,

You alone have crossed the melancholy stream,

Yours the pang, but his, O his, the undiminished

Undecaying gladness, undeparted dream.

All that life contains of torture, toil, and treason,

Shame, dishonor, death, to him were but a name.

Here, a boy, he dwelt through all the singing season

And ere the day of sorrow departed as he came.

Davos, 1881.