Poems, by Robert Louis Stevenson, hitherto unpublished/To A Youth
TO A YOUTH—1872
The "youth" to whom this poem was written, probably in 1872, was almost certainly Stevenson's cousin "Bob," who was later to become noted in fields of art and art criticism. Robert Louis and Robert Alan Stevenson had much in common, both in taste and temperament; and of his elder cousin, Stevenson, in a letter to Sidney Colvin, written in January 1874, said: "He has all the same elements of character that I have: no two people were ever more alike, only that the world has gone more unfortunately for him, although more evenly." The two cousins exchanged verses, counsels and encouragement; and the present poem shows the younger and more famous of the pair offering his friend a message of cheer, based on the philosophy of the all-sufficing value of courageous endeavor.
TO A YOUTH
See, with strong heart O youth, the change
Of mood and season in thy breast.
The intrepid soul that dares the wider range
Shall find securer rest.
The variable moods they breed
Are but as April sun and shower,
That only seem to hinder—truly speed
Against the harvest hour.
Thy net in all rough waters cast,
In all fair pasturelands rejoice,
Thee shall such wealth of trials lead at last
To thy true home of choice.
So shalt thou grow, O youth, at length
Strong in endeavor, strong to bear
As having all things borne, thy lease of strength
Not perishable hair.
Not the frail tenement of health,
The uneasy mail of stoic pride
(A Nessus-shirt indeed!) the veer of wealth
In strong continual tide.
Not these, but in the constant heart,
That having all ways tried, at last
Holds, stout and patient, to the eternal chart,
Well tested in the past.
O, more than garlands for our heads,
Than drum and trumpet sounding loud,
As the long line of fluttering banners threads
The many-coloured crowd;
That sense of progress won with ease,
Of unconstrained advance in both,
Of the full circle finished—such as trees
Feel in their own free growth.
So shall thy life to plains below,
O not unworthy of the crown!
Equal and pure, by lives yet purer, flow
Companionably down.