Poems, by Robert Louis Stevenson, hitherto unpublished/Far over seas an island is

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FAR OVER SEAS AN ISLAND IS

(1889?)

The date of the manuscript is uncertain, but the contents would seem to indicate that it was written prior to Stevenson's setting forth upon his voyage to the islands of the Pacific. "Tossing palms" belong to the Southern Seas,[1] and Stevenson was indeed "done with all," when he took up his abode in the far off island of Samoa. His recognition of the modes of restlessness which would assail him in a place so distant from all the friends and scenes of his past life, here leads him to call upon those resources of the spirit and of the imagination that are the mainstay of man in whatever abode. And so, after asking himself,—

Have I no castle then in Spain,
No island of the mind?

he charges his soul to seek those enchanted islands and streams of desire that are not charted on any map.


FAR OVER SEAS AN ISLAND IS

Far over seas an island is
Whereon when day is done
A grove of tossing palms
Are printed on the sun.
And all about the reefy shore
Blue breakers flash and fall.
There shall I go, methinks,
When I am done with all.


Have I no castle then in Spain,
No island of the mind,
Where I can turn and go again
When life shall prove unkind?
Up, sluggard soul! and far from here
Our mountain forest seek;
Or nigh enchanted island, steer
Down the desired creek.[2]

  1. In Stevenson's description of the South Sea Island of Tutuila he says: "Groves of cocoanut run high on the hills;" and on entering the bay of Oa, he exclaims, "At the first sight, my mind was made up; the bay of Oa was the place for me!"
  2. To these lines, which Stevenson wrote in one of his note books, he added the following verses which, although in a different meter, seem to be a continuation of the same thought.

    There, where I never was,
    There no moral laws,
    Pleasures as thick as haws
    Bloom on the bush!
    Incomes and honours grow
    Thick on the hills.
    O naught the iron horse avails,
    And naught the enormous ship.