Quotes from book
Underwoods

Name: Underwoods
Author: Robert Louis Stevenson

Underwoods is a collection of poems by Robert Louis Stevenson published in 1887. It comprises two books, Book I with 38 poems in English, Book II with 16 poems in Scots. He says in the initial note that "I am from the Lothians myself; it is there I heard the language spoken about my childhood; and it is in the drawling Lothian voice that I repeat it to myself."

“Let first the onion flourish there,
Rose among roots, the maiden-fair,
Wine-scented and poetic soul
Of the capacious salad bowl.”

Robert Louis Stevenson book Underwoods

Bk. I, To a Gardener.
Underwoods (1887)

“Who comes tonight? We ope the doors in vain”

Robert Louis Stevenson book Underwoods

Bk. I, To Henry James.
Underwoods (1887)

“There's just ae thing I cannae bear,
An' that's my conscience.”

Robert Louis Stevenson book Underwoods

Bk. II, In Scots, My Conscience.
Underwoods (1887)

“Dear Andrew, with the brindled hair
Who glory to have thrown in air,
High over arm, the trembling reed,
By Ale and Kail, by Till and Tweed.”

Robert Louis Stevenson book Underwoods

Bk. I, To Andrew Lang.
Underwoods (1887)

“Of all my verse, like not a single line;
But like my title, for it is not mine.
That title from a better man I stole:
Ah, how much better, had I stol'n the whole!”

Robert Louis Stevenson book Underwoods

Title page poem
Underwoods (1887)

“My body which my dungeon is,
And yet my parks and palaces: —
Which is so great that there I go
All the day long to and fro.”

Robert Louis Stevenson book Underwoods

Pt. I, My Body Which My Dungeon Is.
Underwoods (1887)

“Here he lies where he longed to be;
Home is the sailor, home from sea,
And the hunter home from the hill.”

Robert Louis Stevenson book Underwoods

Bk. I, Requiem (the final sentence was used on Stevenson's Gravestone).
Underwoods (1887)
Context: 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.