Poems, by Robert Louis Stevenson, hitherto unpublished/Link your arm in mine, my lad
LINK YOUR ARM IN MINE, MY LAD
1872
While this poem is, as its title indicates, a song doubtless sung by Stevenson and his student companions as they quaffed their glasses in the Edinburgh winter of 1871-1872, it is possible that the "lad" who appears in the first line may have been, not any companion in general, but his cousin, the artist and critic of art, Robert Alan Stevenson. The point of view here shown as to the value of endeavor and the relative unimportance of the individual's place in the social scheme, is one that both in verse and in conversation frequently appears in the exchange of thoughts between the two cousins. However this may be, the poem considered merely as a student song presents so unusual a juxtaposition of ideas as to render it unique. If, for a moment, we omit consideration of the chorus, and study the first four stanzas, we find Stevenson closely following the model of student drinking songs such as may be read by the score in the anthology of John Addington Symonds. The linking of the arms of boon companions, the animadversions against Fortune, the advice deeply to drain the cheering glass, the carefree wish that
Devil take Posterity
And present people too, lad!
are all in the vein of convivial youth, and might be a translation from the Latin of mediaeval days. With such a beginning, we might assuredly expect a ringing chorus with the glowing bowl for its theme; but instead, we have in the chorus itself the unadulterated note of human fraternity, and the only specific suggestion as to conduct has to do, not with the cheer of wine, but with fraternal cheer in the larger sense. And similarly, in the concluding stanzas, immediately following the adjuration to the devil to take both posterity and the present, an appeal implying the futility of all endeavor, the poet devotes himself to the thought of the value of work. There never was a more curious revelation in a drinking song, of cross currents where tendencies towards the easy and the pleasant, the serious and the arduous, are, in their conjunction, expressed in a manner so revelatory of the inner life of the writer.
LINK YOUR ARM IN MINE, MY LAD
Link your arm in mine, my lad—
You and I together,
You and I and all the rest
Shall face the winter weather.
Chorus
Some to good, and some to harm,
Some to cheer the others,
All the world goes arm in arm,
And all the men are brothers.
Fortune kicks us here and there,
Small our role in life, lad.
Better paltry peace, howe'er,
Than hero-laurelled strife, lad.
While there's liquor to be had,
Deeply drain the bickers.
Ocean plays at marbles, lad,
With men of war for knickers.
Who will ever hear of me?
Who will hear of you, lad?
Devil take posterity
And present people too, lad!
I have work enough to do,
Strength enough to do it—
I have work and so have you,
So put your shoulder to it!
Some do half that I can do,
Some can do the double,
Some must rule for me and you,
To save ourselves the trouble!
Who would envy yonder man
Decorated thus, lad?
We are workingmen for him,
And he's an earl for us, lad!