Poems, by Robert Louis Stevenson, hitherto unpublished/Good old ale, mild or pale
GOOD OLD ALE, MILD OR PALE—(1880?)
Again a point of interrogation must follow the date offered as the probable period of composition. At any rate, Stevenson was away from England or Scotland; and it is amusing to find his mind reverting not—as so often in other poems written in America or the South Seas—to home folks and sentimental aspects of early life, but to the ales and beers of his native land. The extent of his thirst is indicated in one of the most whimsical of all his lines, "give me a vat to swim a whale," which may echo the thoughts of not a few latter-day American readers.
GOOD OLD ALE, MILD OR PALE
Good old ale, mild or pale,
India ale and Burton,
Give me a vat to swim a whale.
When far along the verdant dale
The far off spire appears,
The mind reverts to Burton's ale
And dreams of different beers.