Stevensoniana; an Anecdotal Life and Appreciation of Robert Louis Stevenson, Ed. from the Writings of J.M. Barrie, S.R. Crocket
——; — ! 92 STEVENSONIANA VIII ISLAND DAYS TO TUSITALA IN VAILIMA^ Clearest voice in Britain's chorus, Tusitala Years ago, years four-and-twenty. Grey the cloudland drifted o'er us, When these ears first heard you talking, When these eyes first saw you smiling. Years of famine, years of plenty, Years of beckoning and beguiling. Years of yielding, shifting, baulking, ' When the good ship Clansman ' bore us Round the spits of Tobermory, Glens of Voulin like a vision. Crags of Knoidart, huge and hoary, We had laughed in light derision. Had they told us, told the daring Tusitala, What the years' pale hands were bearing, Years in stately dim division. II Now the skies are pure above you, Tusitala; Feather'd trees bow down to love you 1 This poem, addressed to Robert Louis Stevenson, reached him at Vailima three days before his death. It was the last piece of verse read by Stevenson, and it is the subject of the last letter he wrote on the last day of his life. The poem was read by Mr. Lloyd Osbourne at the funeral. It is here printed, by kind permission of the author, from Mr. Edmund Gosse's ' In Russet and Silver,' 1894, of which it was the dedication. After the Photo by] [./. Davis, Apia, Samoa STEVENSON AT VAILIMA [To face page i>'l ! ——— ! ISLAND DAYS 93 Perfum'd winds from shining waters Stir the sanguine-leav'd hibiscus That your kingdom's dusk-ey'd daughters Weave about their shining tresses ; Dew-fed guavas drop their viscous Honey at the sun's caresses, Where eternal summer blesses Your ethereal musky highlands ; Ah ! but does your heart remember, Tusitala, Westward in our Scotch September, Blue against the pale sun's ember, That low rim of faint long islands.
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