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Assoc for Scottish Literature

Say not of me that weakly I declined
The labours of my sires, and fled the sea,
The towers we founded and the lamps we lit…

—Robert Louis Stevenson’s apologia for deserting the family business of lighthouse-building

“Say not of me that weakly I declined” Robert Louis Stevenson Say not of me that weakly I declined The labours of my sires, and fled the sea, The towers we founded and the lamps we lit, To play at home with paper like a child. But rather say: In the afternoon of time A strenuous family dusted from its hands The sand of granite, and beholding far Along the sounding coast its pyramids And tall memorials catch the dying sun, Smiled well content, and to this childish task Around the fire addressed its evening hours.
#Scottish#literature#19thcentury
Assoc for Scottish Literature

On a New Form of Intermittent Light for Lighthouses

“One advantage of the method that I propose is this, that while we are able to produce a plain intermittent light; an intermittent light of variable period, ranging from a brief flash to a steady illumination of half the revolution…”

One of Stevenson’s lesser-known publications, submitted to the Board of Northern Lights, 1870


digital.nls.uk/rlstevenson/bro

Aug 20, 2023, 01:28 PM·Public·Web
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Public
Assoc for Scottish Literature

This poem accompanied Stevenson’s paper “On a New Form of Intermittent Light for Lighthouses” …

To the Commissioners of Northern Lights Robert Louis Stevenson I send to you, commissioners, A paper that may please ye, sirs (For troth they say it might be worse‍‍ An’ I believe’t) And on your business lay my curse‍‍ Before I leav’t. I thocht I’d serve wi’ you, sirs, yince, But I’ve thocht better of it since; The matter I will nowise mince,‍‍ But tell ye true: I’ll service wi’ some ither prince,‍‍ An’ no wi’ you. I’ve no been very deep, ye’ll think, Cam’ delicately to the brink An’ when the water gart me shrink‍‍ Straucht took the rue, An’ didna stoop my fill to drink—‍‍ I own it true. I kent on cape and isle, a light Burnt fair an’ clearly ilka night; But at the service I took fright,‍‍ As sune’s I saw, An’ being still a neophite‍‍ Gaed straucht awa’. Anither course I now begin, The weeg I’Il cairry for my Sin, The court my voice shall echo in,‍‍ An’—wha can tell?— Some ither day I may be yin‍‍ O’ you mysel’.
#Scottish#literature#19thcentury
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