Poems, by Robert Louis Stevenson, hitherto unpublished/If I could arise and travel away
IF I COULD ARISE AND TRAVEL AWAY—(1880?)
In the previous two volumes of Stevenson poems issued by The Bibliophile Society, there was occasion to remark on the coincidence in metre (and a very unusual metre) in Stevenson's poem beginning "I Who All the Winter Through" and in Kipling's "Mandalay." The superlative advantage of Kipling's famous verses lies, of course, in the fact that Mandalay is a place where "there ain't no ten commandments, and a man can raise a thirst." Curiously enough, in the present poem, again antedating Kipling's, Stevenson longs for a land where all men can drink with "perfect zest," and where "we're done with the ten commandments." No charge of plagiarism, however remote, is imputed to Kipling; but the coincidence is certainly interesting. As to the date of the poem, here tentatively suggested as 1880, one cannot be sure; but the handwriting and context seem to point to the Californian days.
IF I COULD ARISE AND TRAVEL AWAY
If I could arise and travel away
Over the plains of the night and the day,
I should arrive at a land at last
Where all of our sins and sorrows are past
And we're done with the Ten Commandments.
The name of the land I must not tell;
Green is the grass and cool the well:
Virtue is easy to find and to keep,
And the sinner may lie at his pleasure and sleep
By the side of the Ten Commandments.
Income and honor, and glory and gold
Grow on the bushes all over the wold;
And if ever a man has a touch of remorse,
He eats of the flower of the golden gorse,
And to hell with the Ten Commandments.
He goes to church in his Sunday's best;
He eats and drinks with perfect zest;
And whether he lives in heaven or hell
Is more than you or I can tell;
But he's done with the Ten Commandments.