ROBERT Louis Stevenson, the last of this week’s “Three Rabbies,” is best known as novelist and essayist. But he wrote some memorable poetry, including this poignant evocation of southern Scotland from his Pacific exile. It was dedicated to fellow novelist S R Crockett.
BLOWS THE WIND TODAY
Blow the wind today, and the sun and the rain are flying,
Blows the wind on the moors today and now,
Where about the graves of the martyrs the whaups are crying,
My heart remembers how!
Grey recumbent tombs of the dead in desert places,
Standing stones on the vacant wine-red moor,
Hills of sheep, and the homes of the silent vanished races,
And winds, austere and pure:
Be it granted me to behold you again in dying,
Hills of home! and to hear again the call;
Hear about the graves of the martyrs the peewees crying,
And hear no more at all.
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