Complete Poems; A Child's Garden of Verses--Underwoods--Ballads - Robert Louis Stevenson

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1905 edition. Excerpt: ... TO ORI A ORI Ort my brother in the island mode, In every tongue and meaning much my friend, This story of your country and your clan, In your loved house, your too much honoured guest, I made in English. Take it% being done; A nd let me sign it with the name you gave. Thriitera. THE SONG OF RAHERO: A LEGEND OF TAHITI I. THE SLAYING OF TAMATEA IT fell in the days of old, as the men of Taiarapu tell, A youth went forth to the fishing, and fortune favoured him well. Tamatea his name: gullible, simple, and kind, Comely of countenance, nimble of body, empty of mind, His mother ruled him and loved him beyond the wont of a wife, Serving the lad for eyes and living herself in his life. Alone from the sea and the fishing came Tamatea the fair, Urging his boat to the beach, and the mother awaited him there, -- " Long may you live!" said she. "Your fishing has sped to a wish. And now let us choose for the king the fairest of all 10 your fish. For fear inhabits the palace and grudging grows in the land, Marked is the sluggardly foot and marked the niggardly hand, The hours and the miles are counted, the tributes numbered and weighed, And woe to him that comes short, and woe to him that delayed!" So spoke on the beach the mother, and counselled the wiser thing. For Rahero stirred in the country and secretly mined the king. Nor were the signals wanting of how the leaven wrought, In the cords of obedience loosed and the tributes grudgingly brought. And when last to the temple of Oro the boat with the victim sped, 20 And the priest uncovered the basket and looked on the face of the dead, Trembling fell upon all at sight of an ominous thing, For there was the aito1 dead, and he of the house of the king. So spake on the beach the mother, matter worthy of...