A Valentine'S Song
Viewed 186 timesA Valentine'S Song
MOTLEY I count the only wear
That suits, in this mixed world, the truly wise,
Who boldly smile upon despair
And shake their bells in Grandam Grundy's eyes.
Singers should sing with such a goodly cheer
That the bare listening should make strong like wine,
At this unruly time of year,
The Feast of Valentine.
We do not now parade our "oughts"
And "shoulds" and motives and beliefs in God.
Their life lies all indoors; sad thoughts
Must keep the house, while gay thoughts go abroad,
Within we hold the wake for hopes deceased;
But in the public streets, in wind or sun,
Keep open, at the annual feast,
The puppet-booth of fun.
Our powers, perhaps, are small to please,
But even negro-songs and castanettes,
Old jokes and hackneyed repartees
Are more than the parade of vain regrets.
Let Jacques stand Wert(h)ering by the wounded deer -
We shall make merry, honest friends of mine,
At this unruly time of year,
The Feast of Valentine.
I know how, day by weary day,
Hope fades, love fades, a thousand pleasures fade.
I have not trudged in vain that way
On which life's daylight darkens, shade by shade.
And still, with hopes decreasing, griefs increased,
Still, with what wit I have shall I, for one,
Keep open, at the annual feast,
The puppet-booth of fun.
I care not if the wit be poor,
The old worn motley stained with rain and tears,
If but the courage still endure
That filled and strengthened hope in earlier years;
If still, with friends averted, fate severe,
A glad, untainted cheerfulness be mine
To greet the unruly time of year,
The Feast of Valentine.
Priest, I am none of thine, and see
In the perspective of still hopeful youth
That Truth shall triumph over thee -
Truth to one's self - I know no other truth.
I see strange days for thee and thine, O priest,
And how your doctrines, fallen one by one,
Shall furnish at the annual feast
The puppet-booth of fun.
Stand on your putrid ruins - stand,
White neck-clothed bigot, fixedly the same,
Cruel with all things but the hand,
Inquisitor in all things but the name.
Back, minister of Christ and source of fear -
We cherish freedom - back with thee and thine
From this unruly time of year,
The Feast of Valentine.
Blood thou mayest spare; but what of tears?
But what of riven households, broken faith -
Bywords that cling through all men's years
And drag them surely down to shame and death?
Stand back, O cruel man, O foe of youth,
And let such men as hearken not thy voice
Press freely up the road to truth,
The King's highway of choice.
Miscellany
Other poems by Robert Louis Stevenson (read randomly)
The bed was made, the room was fit,
By punctual eve the stars were lit;
The air was still, the water ran,
I woke before the morning, I was happy all the day, …
I never said an ugly word, but smiled and stuck to …
And now at last the sun is g...
The clinkum-clank o' Sabbath bells
Noo to the hoastin' rookery swells,
Noo faintin' laigh in shady dells,
A mile an' a bittock, a mile or twa,
Abune the burn, ayont the law,
Davie an' Donal' an' Cherlie an' a',
I am a kind of farthing dip,
Unfriendly to the nose and eyes;
A blue-behinded ape, I skip
The gauger walked with willing foot,
And aye the gauger played the flute;
And what should Master Gauger play
It is very nice to think
The world is full of meat and drink,
With little children saying grace
MOTLEY I count the only wear
That suits, in this mixed world, the truly wise,
Who boldly smile upon despair
Far from the loud sea beaches
Where he goes fishing and crying
Here in the inland garden
ABOUT the sheltered garden ground
The trees stand strangely still.
The vale ne'er seemed so deep before,
NOW in the sky
And on the hearth of
Now in a drawer the direful cane,
GO(D) knows, my Martial, if we two could be
To enjoy our days set wholly free;
To the true life together bend our mind,
O NEPOS, twice my neigh(b)our (since at home
We're door by door, by Flora's temple dome;
And in the country, still conjoined by fate,
CALL me not rebel, though { here at every word
{in what I sing
If I no longer hail thee { King and Lord
FOR these are sacred fishes all
Who know that lord that is the lord of all;
Come to the brim and nose the friendly hand
O CHIEF director of the growing race,
Of Rome the glory and of Rome the grace,
Me, O Quintilian, may you not forgive
DEAR sir, good-morrow! Five years back,
When you first girded for this arduous track,
And under various whimsical pretexts
AS when the hunt by holt and field
Drives on with horn and strife,
Hunger of hopeless things pursues
