Where Go the Boats Robert Louis Stevenson Dark brown is the river, Golden is the sand. It flows along for ever, With trees on either hand. Green leaves a-floating, Castles of the foam, Boats of mine a-boating-- Where will all come home? On goes the river And out past the mill, Away down the valley, Away down the hill. Away down the river, A hundred miles or more, Other little children Shall bring my boats ashore. | Once a bedridden child keep alive by the emboldening fables of his nurse, Robert Louis Stevenson came to write the very stories that would quicken the pulses and awaken the hearts of generations of children to come. A classic author of children’s fiction and idiosyncratic poet who never fails to enchant all ages. He was born on November 13, 1850, to a traditional Scottish Engineering family and died in the arms of his beloved wife, a well-respected and well-traveled man, among the Samoan people whose devotion he had so well deservedly earned on December 3, 1894. A man who never let his poor health prevent him from pursuing his lifelong yearning for the high-seas adventure, and mystery, he sought to live his life with an undying passion and seize it’s every opportunity, and that he did. Perhaps this vivacity was brought on by his persistent debilitated lungs, but he only ever let it bring out the best in him. Therein lies a lesson we could all benefit from, that the surest route to contentment is through our dreams. |
Robert Louis Stevenson was born on 13 November 1850, in Edinburgh, Scotland he was sickly child with a weak chest. Stevenson was extremely prone to fevers and bouts of coughs, only intensified by his damp, chilly childhood home of 1 Inverleith Terrace. Even after his family moved to a slightly better insulated house, Stevenson’s ill health persisted until the age of eleven and reaccured throughout his life, resulting in his perpetually and unnaturally slim figure. In his illness it was young Stevenson’s nurse Alison Cunningham who cared for and read to him: stories from Bunyan and The Bible, even if her devout Calvinist often terrified him he does recount their bedside relationship fondly in “A Children’s Garden of Verses,” in the poem "The Land of Counterpane" and in the quote "My recollections of the long nights when I was kept awake by coughing are only relieved by thoughts of the tenderness of my nurse." who stories of the perils of high seas, folk-beasts and haunting maintained the boy through his periods of inaction. Though, Stevenson’s parents were ardent Presbyterians, they never imposed this upon their son instead letting him choose for himself. Stevenson’s father a minister of a local church, was a busy man and this lead to Stevenson spending much of his childhood growing up with his maternal grandfather, as for the presence of his father Stevenson could only say: "what I inherited from this old minister. I must suppose, indeed, that he was fond of preaching sermons, and so am I, though I never heard it maintained that either of us loved to hear them." However, when later in life Stevenson renounced religion entirely and proclaimed himself an atheist, both his parents distanced themselves from him, and he was led to write this verse:
“What a damned curse I am to my parents! As my father said "You have rendered my whole life a failure". As my mother said "This is the heaviest affliction that has ever befallen me". O Lord, what a pleasant thing it is to have damned the happiness of (probably) the only two people who care a damn about you in the world.” Much of Stevenson’s childhood, was spent in a melancholy state, as Stevenson as a consequence of medical condition had a peculiar appearance and could never fit in during the few periods of his childhood in which he was healthy enough to attend school, as a result he was mainly taught by private tutors until at the age of 17 he entered the University of Scotland to study engineering which was the family employment. Regardless, it was the arts that truly called to Stevenson, and a family trip to the Lighthouses of Orkney and Shetland Islands by way of an official tour was of more interest to him as a writing topic than the pinnacle of engineering it was to his father. With no interest in his studies Stevenson was soon inspired by a kindred spirit in his cousin, Robert Alan Mowbray Stevenson, the young man had chosen to pursue in the arts in place of the family occupation, “Bob” as he was often called was jovial and carefree fellow who greatly influenced both Stevenson’s career choices and religious beliefs, he was a factor after all in Stevenson’s conversion to atheism. Prior to this, it was with disappointment and not scorn that Stevenson’s namesake father respected his choice to abandon his education in favor of aspiring to a profession of writing, the elderly man was not surprised by his son’s decision and according to Stevenson’s mother he was "wonderfully resigned" about the whole matter. Yet, as Stevenson grew to reject his upbringing in additional respects including dress, religion and general courtesy: becoming a bohemian and surrounding himself with seamen, chimney sweeps and thieves a long lasting dissension grew between parents and son.
It was during his escapades into the diverse stretches of the world, and this time: America that Stevenson met his future wife: who became both a comfort and a inspiration to him. Even collaboratively with him on several work including “More New Arabian Nights: The Dynamiter”. From 1876, the first moment he set eyes on her, Stevenson was starstruck, literally leaping through a window to introduce himself to Fanny Van de Grift Osbourne as she sat dining among friends, and from that first bow onwards he would chase her for four across The United States all the way to San Francisco and though this journey leached his health, it was in that glorious year of 1880 that they were married even if Stevenson declared himself "a mere compilation of cough and bones, much fitter for an emblem of mortality than a bridegroom.”.
The remainder of Robert Louis Stevenson’s life was spent torn between illness and adventure and writing all the time. He traveled from area to area seeking a residence that would prove beneficial to his malady spending summers in Scotland and England where he wrote “The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde”(1886), the shorter novel which worked to further broaden his audience. He then attempted to live with Fanny and her son in France for a time, it was during this period of movement that he published not only “Treasure Island”, his first widely popular book; but “Kidnapped”; and "The Black Arrow;" as well as two volumes of verse, "A Child's Garden of Verses" and "Underwoods". When a physician suggested a complete change of climate to Stevenson he returned to America where he moved between Colorado and New York, even briefly staying in New Jersey, suffering through long cold winter in which he wrote his most renowned essays including Pulvis et Umbra, and The Master of Ballantrae. Here he also planned to embark with Franny and his household upon a cruise through the pacific Islands the following year, claiming that "To travel hopefully is a better thing than to arrive." and commenting "The proudest moments of my life, have been passed in the stern-sheets of a boat with that romantic garment over my shoulders."
So it was that Robert Louis Stevenson left by ship on an expedition into the eastern and central Pacific from the Gilbert Islands, Tahiti, New Zealand, the Samoan Islands to an extended stay in the Hawaiian Islands. Here he befriended both king Kalākaua and his niece, Princess Victoria Kaiulani, he went on to witness the Samoan crisis, and record the events of these years in his various letters, but additionally in his “In the South Seas” (a posthumously published collection of memoirs). Stevenson often became embroiled in local politics, including the actions of a Presbyterian minister in Honolulu named Rev. Dr. Charles McEwen Hyde and upon visiting the local leper colony a one such Father Damien. He became particularly devoted to the conditions of the Samoans, he attempted to help the locals joust their Europeans officials several times, of whose incompetence he was persuaded. It was on his final voyage that he settled among them and took the native name Tusitala (Samoan for "Teller of Tales", i.e. a storyteller).
Invigorated by the sea air and a sense of adventure, the emboldened and strengthened Robert Louis Stevenson became a near legend among the Samoan. The people grew to greatly respect him, even conferring with him over important decisions and for advice. His fruitless attempts to resolve the matters of Samoan rule resulted in his publication of “A Footnote to History”. A work of such scathing review of present state of event that it's publication resulted in the recall of two officials residing on the island and caused Stevenson to be apprehensive of his own deportation. But Robert Louis Stevenson was let be and he wrote to an old friend "I used to think meanly of the plumber; but how he shines beside the politician!". While in the Islands, Stevenson had planned to follow up his novel “In the South Seas” with a companion, but as he ended up staying on the Samoas it was his wife, Franny who published the narrative of their final voyage. Nevertheless while in the islands Stevenson continued to write from “The Beach of Falesa” and “Catriona” (titled David Balfour in the US), to “The Ebb-Tide”, and the “Vailima Letters”, but it didn’t last and Stevenson soon fell into a period of abasement, desperately ruminating that he had destroyed his imagination by using in such critical ways, feeling that now even his most passionate attempts were "ditch-water". Not wishing to pass away a helpless invalid, this fear of life left unlived once again enlivened Stevenson: "I wish to die in my boots; no more Land of Counterpane for me. To be drowned, to be shot, to be thrown from a horse — ay, to be hanged, rather than pass again through that slow dissolution." and he began work on “Weir of Hermiston”. The author grew increasingly fervent "It's so good that it frightens me," he exulted claiming to have felt this was his greatest composition yet. In his final year he stated "sick and well, I have had splendid life of it, grudge nothing, regret very little ... take it all over, damnation and all, would hardly change with any man of my time." And so it was that he passed away as fiery as ever over a bottle of wine, the locals who had grown to love Stevenson insisted on carrying him upon their shoulders to the adjacent Mount Vaea to a truly gorgeous location looking out over the sea. Upon his tombstone, is carved in addition to the writer’s own requested “Requiem”
Under the wide and starry sky,
Dig the grave and let me lie.
Glad 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 sea,
And the hunter home from the hill.
the samoan song of grief. So in death it seems Stevenson could only grow in the respect and love people showered his writing in. Even if for a period of the 20th century writers such as Virginia Woolf deemed him second class for an apparent lack of psychological depth and mental stimulation: but the magic of simplicity will always be lost to some and to this day Stevenson remains one of the most beloved authors of his genre of all time. Nobody will ever rivel his action-packed fantasy or childlike enthusiasm for life.
“Where Go the Boats,” is composed in classic rhyme scheme, elementary and yet all the more charismatic for it’s simplicity. It’s syllable structure was similarly transparent, which is perhaps one of the features that makes it so appealing to children unburdened with adult complications or frivolities such as analogies or enigmatic insults, Stevenson’s stories and poems are instead bursting with pure life and daring. Built of four stanzas of 4 lines each, with alternating lines of five or six syllables respectively in a pattern know for it's iconic child-orientated arrangement akin to that of a Mother Goose nursery rhyme. The pattern is set in the compellingly rhythmic ABAB scheme and easy on both the eyes and ears with a clear organization apparent to either sense. It tells the story of a young boy as he sets paper boats in to a flowing river, “Boats of mine a-boating—” after he begins by illustrating the scene
“Dark brown is the river,
Golden is the sand.
It flows along for ever,
With trees on either hand.
Green leaves a-floating,
Castles of the foam,”
metaphorically describing the frothing of the stream, he ponders the fate of these boats “Where will all come home?”. This knowledge is beyond the child, and perhaps beyond us for none of us are capable of foreseeing or controlling the courses of consequence our actions great or small when they are set into play. When he releases the boats from his command he forfeits the rights to their freedom, and all awareness of their fate. As they advance farther and farther from his line of sight.
“On goes the river
And out past the mill,
Away down the valley,
Away down the hill.
Away down the river,”
Where the boats will end he will never know, nor how far they will travel(“A hundred miles or more,”) perchance they lapse into the jurisdiction of another,
“Other little children
Shall bring my boats ashore.”if some boy or girl downstream, stoops to collect them, he will never know.This poem can become a metaphor to many things friendships, friends, family, children, the life of a loved one, our own lives, habits or so on but the common theme of relinquishing our hold on something whether it is memories or emotions, people or items, remains constant. We will never be able to control all elements and beings in our lives, and the sooner we come to this bittersweet realization the simpler and easier our lives will become.
Once you have read Robert Louis Stevenson it imbues you with a surge of raw and lustful emotion you will never forget, a thirst for the treasures of our past and the adventures of our future all at once. So it condemns those who castigate Stevenson and his work, their insults show only a foolish ignorance and narrow-minded sight through which they are incapable of processing the depth of purity and the joy of adventure. For anyone who has truly read Stevenson, could pass of his work as anything else than effortless brilliance, contained in riveting plot lines. And many authors did recognize this, including other masters of the genre such as Rudyard Kipling, J. M. Barrie, Jack London, Jorge Luis Borges, Bertolt Brecht, Marcel Proust, Arthur Conan Doyle, Henry James, Cesare Pavese, Ernest Hemingway, Vladimir Nabokov, and even the widely renowned G. K. Chesterton praised him saying "seemed to pick the right word up on the point of his pen, like a man playing spillikins." and "All his images stand out in sharp outline. . . . It is as if [the words] were cut out with cutlasses." Eternally, a classic for the young and the old, Robert Louis Stevenson enchants lovers of escape, adventure, whimsy, wonder, magic, mystery and the high seas alike.