Robert Louis Stevenson

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    Biographical information

  1. Border Ballad
  2. Katharine
  3. The Flowers
  4. Fifteen Men On The Dead Man's Chest
  5. Love- What Is Love




    Biographical information
      Name: Robert Louis Balfour Stevenson
      Place and date of birth: Edinburgh (Scotland); November 13, 1850
      Place and date of death: Vailima (Samoa); December 3, 1894 (aged 44)
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      Border Ballad
        The lamps now glitter down the street;
        Faintly sound the falling feet;
        And the blue even slowly falls
        About the garden trees and walls.
        Now in the falling of the gloom
        The red fire paints the empty room:
        And warmly on the roof it looks,
        And flickers on the back of books.
        Armies march by tower and spire
        Of cities blazing, in the fire;
        Till as I gaze with staring eyes,
        The armies fall, the lustre dies.
        Then once again the glow returns;
        Again the phantom city burns;
        And down the red-hot valley, lo!
        The phantom armies marching go!.
        Blinking embers, tell me true
        Where are those armies marching to,
        And what the burning city is
        That crumbles in your furnaces!.
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      Katharine
        We see you as we see a face
        That trembles in a forest place
        Upon the mirror of a pool
        Forever quiet, clear and cool;
        And in the wayward glass, appears
        To hover between smiles and tears,
        Elfin and human, airy and true,
        And backed by the reflected blue.
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      The Flowers
        All the names I know from nurse:
        Gardener's garters, Shepherd's purse,
        Bachelor's buttons, Lady's smock,
        And the Lady Hollyhock.
        Fairy places, fairy things,
        Fairy woods where the wild bee wings,
        Tiny trees for tiny dames--
        These must all be fairy names!
        Tiny woods below whose boughs
        Shady fairies weave a house;
        Tiny tree-tops, rose or thyme,
        Where the braver fairies climb!.
        Fair are grown-up people's trees,
        But the fairest woods are these;
        Where, if I were not so tall,
        I should live for good and all.
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      Fifteen Men On The Dead Man's Chest
        Fifteen men on the Dead Man's Chest
        Yo-ho-ho, and a bottle of rum!
        Drink and the devil had done for the rest
        Yo-ho-ho, and a bottle of rum!
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      Love- What Is Love
        To friends at home, the lone, the admired, the lost
        The gracious old, the lovely young, to May
        The fair, December the beloved,
        These from my blue horizon and green isles,
        These from this pinnacle of distances I,
        The unforgetful, dedicate.
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