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To an Island Princess

  • Type: Poem



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Timeline

Y/M/D Association Description Place Locale Food Event
1888/11/05 Robert Louis Stevenson Visitor While Princess Moi helps nurse Robert Stevenson back to health, he writes "To an Island Princess". Tahiti French Polynesia Stevensons' Voyage on the CASCO
1896/00/00 Robert Louis Stevenson Author Songs of Travel and Other Verses, including To an Island Princess, is published

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Particulars for To an Island Princess:
Art Type Poem writing that partakes of the nature of both speech and song that is typically rhythmical, usually metaphorical, and often exhibits such formal elements as meter, rhyme and stanzaic structure.



To an Island Princess

By

Since long ago, a child at home,
I read and longed to rise and roam,
Where'er I went, whate'er I willed,
One promised land my fancy filled.
Hence the long roads my home I made;
Tossed much in ships; have often laid
Below the uncurtained sky my head,
Rain-deluged and wind-buffeted:
And many a thousand hills I crossed
And corners turned - Love's labour lost,
Till, Lady, to your isle of sun
I came, not hoping; and, like one
Snatched out of blindness, rubbed my eyes,
And hailed my promised land with cries.

Yes, Lady, here I was at last;
Here found I all I had forecast:
The long roll of the sapphire sea
That keeps the land's virginity;
The stalwart giants of the wood
Laden with toys and flowers and food;
The precious forest pouring out
To compass the whole town about;
The town itself with streets of lawn,
Loved of the moon, blessed by the dawn,
Where the brown children all the day
Keep up a ceaseless noise of play,
Play in the sun, play in the rain,
Nor ever quarrel or complain; -
And late at night, in the woods of fruit,
Hark! do you hear the passing flute?

I threw one look to either hand,
And knew I was in Fairyland.
And yet one point of being so
I lacked. For, Lady (as you know),
Whoever by his might of hand,
Won entrance into Fairyland,
Found always with admiring eyes
A Fairy princess kind and wise.
It was not long I waited; soon
Upon my threshold, in broad noon,
Gracious and helpful, wise and good,
The Fairy Princess Moe stood.

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