R. L. Stevenson:

A great writer for children

Have you ever learned or read a poem about your shadow that begins like this. "I have a little shadow - that goes in and out with me," or a poem about a dark brown river that "flows along for ever - with trees on either hand"?

These are poems I learned when I was, if I remember right, in Standard 2. In those far off days, the school was divided into standards, not grades as now.

Recently, when I was in a bookshop, I picked up a book that had these two poems, and some others I had learned at school. I was thrilled!

The title of the book was 'A Child's Garden of Verse'. It contained over 60 poems, written by the greatest writer of poems in English for children. The poet's name is Robert Louis Stevenson, often referred to by his initials RLS.

If you see this little book in your school library, borrow it and read and re-read the poems. They are easy to read, easy to understand and you will enjoy them. Reading them will improve your English too.

Let me tell you a little about this man who was born in Scotland in 1850 and died in far away Samoa, an island in the Pacific Ocean in 1894.

In his short life of 44 years, he left a lasting legacy to children who speak the English language and read books written in English.

Robert Louis Stevenson was born on November 13, 1850, to a prosperous Scottish couple, Thomas and Margeret Stevenson. He was their only child. Almost from birth, Robert Louis was in poor health. So he had no regular schooling.

He was often ill or too weak to play with other children. He spent long hours in bed by himself.

Fortunately he had a loving nurse, Allison Cunningham. Then as he was too young to read, this nurse would entertain him with stories that made the time slip by. These stories fired his imagination.

In the poems he wrote in adult life, he recreates the things he imagined as he lay in bed as a child in the poem 'The Land of Counterpane' ; he is "the giant great and still - that sits upon the pillow-hill, who sometimes for an hour or so watched the leaden soldiers go - and sometimes sent my ships in fleets - all up and down among the sheets".

In his poems he recaptured the thoughts and feelings and fantasies of a small child. Look at this little verse:

The rain is raining all around

It falls on field and tree

It rains on the umbrellas here

And on the ships at sea.

Here are the opening lines of the poem 'From A Railway Carriage'. Read them fast, and you'll almost hear the clatter of wheels on the rails as the train speeds along.

Faster than fairies, faster than witches,

Bridges and houses, hedges and ditches;

And charging along like troops in a battle

All through the meadows the horses and cattle;

All the sights of the hill and plain

Fly as thick as driving rain;

Many years later, in 1885 he published all the poems wrote for children in the book 'A Child's Garden of Verse, which I came across recently. The book opens with a dedication: To Alison Cunningham from her boy.

The dedication shows how much he loved Allison Cunningham, his nurse and how much she meant to him. Here are the first two verses.

For the long nights you lay awake

And watched for my unworthy sake;

For your most comfortable hand

That led me through the uneven lands,

For all the story books you read

For all the pains you comforted;

For all you pitied, all you bore,

In sad and happy days of yore:-

My second mother, my first wife,

The angel of my infant life -

From the sick child, now well and old

Take nurse, the little book you hold.

The poem is signed RLS. Though he says "now wee and old", he was only 35 years, when the book was published.

RLS wrote an adventure story about some pirates' treasure - Treasure Island which is still widely read and considered one of the best books ever written for children: It has been translated into Sinhala as Sampath Doopatha.

He wrote many other novels, essays and accounts of his travels - one of these he calls Travels with a Donkey, but the book that made him famous and secured him a place among the great English novelists was Dr. Jekyl and Mr. Hyde, a horror story full of suspense.

It has been called an allegorical novel, because Jekyl and Hyde are symbols representing the good side and bad side of a man.

However, it is as a writer of poems for children that he is remembered and he has left his mark in English literature.

Stevenson's father was a prosperous engineer and he wanted the son to follow the same profession. Lighthouse engineering was a family profession. But son Robert's interests were not in that line. He preferred books and reading and writing.

The ambitious father thought of an alternative and persuaded the son to study law. RLS entered the University of Edinburgh at age 17, studied law and was called to the Bar; but he never practised as a lawyer.

When only 23 years of age, RLS fell seriously ill and was sent to the Riviera in South France as the climate of Scotland did not suit him. Many years later his illness was diagnosed as TB (tuberculosis).

Most of his life, RLS was suffering from this disease of the lungs. He went to France, to Switzerland, to America and back to Scotland and the South of England, travelling to and fro, in search of a climate that suited him.

Although he suffered great pain, his poems show no trace of his pain and suffering. In fact, they look on the sunny side of life. Look at these two lines.

The world is so full of a number of things, I'm sure we should all be as happy as kings.

In 1888 he sailed from San Francisco with his wife and stepson for excursion for pleasure and health, in the Pacific Ocean. After visiting many islands, he finally settled down in Samoa in October 1890.

The climate suited him. He bought a large estate 'Vailima', and started a new life. The Samoans loved him and called him 'Tusitala'. It means 'story teller'.

RLS died suddenly on December 3, 1894 of a brain haemorrhage, not of TB that he suffered from all his life.

His Samoan friends carried his body to the top of Mount Vaca, and buried him there and set up this epitaph that RLS himself had written.

Under the wide and starry sky,

Dig the grave and let me lie,

Gladly did I live and gladly die

And I laid me down with a will.

This be the verse you grave for me,

Here he lies where he longed to be,

Home is the sailor, home from the sea,

And the hunter home from the hill.

This is a well-known poem. The last two lines are often quoted. His impressions and experiences recorded in his book "In the South Seas" was published after his death.

Sumana Saparamadu