# Poems, by Robert Louis Stevenson, hitherto unpublished/The Mill-House

THE MILL-HOUSE—1866
This impressive poem antedates any piece included in any previous volume of Stevenson's verse, and appears to be the longest of his early attempts at poetry. Written presumably at Swanston, it is very successful in many of its descriptive passages, both in its sense of actuality, as where "great horses strain against the load of the sack-laden wagons," and in that imaginative atmosphere created by chivalrous knights and phantom castles. It is permissible to believe that the verses are merely the opening portion of some long composition which Stevenson had in mind; yet in themselves they give a sense of completeness, because the poet, after having let his thought wander into the fields of romance and of faery, ends his manuscript with a mental and spiritual return to those problems of life, those "grim questionings of heart," which were just beginning to absorb the thoughtful and passionate boy.
THE MILL-HOUSE
(A SICK-BED FANCY)
An alley ran across the pleasant wood, On either side of whose broad opening stood Wide-armed green elms of many a year, great bowers Of perfect greenery in summer hours. A small red pathway slow meandered there Between two clumps of grapes, [both] lush and fair, Well grown, that brushed a tall man past the knee. No summer day grew therein over hot, For there was a pleasant freshness in the spot Brought thither by a stream that men might see Behind the rough-barked bole of every tree— A little stream that ever murmured on And here and there in sudden sunshine shone; But for the most part, swept by shadowy boughs, Among tall grass and fallen leaves did drowse, With ever and anon, a leap, a gleam, As some cross boulder lay athwart the stream.
​Close following down this alley, one came near The place where it descended sudden, sheer, Into a dell betwixt two wooded hills, Where ran a river made of many rills. Near where to this the little alley stream Lapsed in a turmoil, stood as in a dream A lone, small mill-house in the vale aloof With orange mosses on a grey slate roof And all the walls and every lintel stone With water mosses cunningly o'ergrown. Its four-paned windows looked across a pool By shadow of the house and trees kept cool; Pent by the mossy weir that served the mill, Its little waters lay unmoved and still, Save for a circular, slow, eddy-wheeling That on its bubble-spotted breast kept stealing And now and then the sudden, short windsway Of some elm branch or beachen, that all day Trailed in the shadowed pool; but far below The enfranchised waters, in tumultuous flow, Splashed round the boulders and leapt on in foam Adown the sunshine way that led them home. ​There was no noise at all about the mill And the slope garden, like a dream, was still. There came no sound at all into the glade, Save when the white sack-laden waggons made Wheel-creaking in the shadowy, slanting road And the great horses strained against the load; Or when some trout would splash in the pool perhaps, Or my old pointer from his pendulous chaps Bayed at the very stillness. In the house It was so strangely quiet that the mouse Held carnival at midday on the floor. The hearths were lined with Holland picture tiles Of olden stories of enchanters' wiles; And knights, stiff-seeming, upon stiffer steeds Hasting to help fair ladies at their needs; And bible tales, of prophets and of kings; And faery ones, of midnight, meadow rings Whereon, at mild star-rise, the wanton elves Dance, having cleared the grass blades for themselves As we men clear a forest; and besides Of phantom castles and of woodland rides, Of convent cloisters and religious veils ​And all such like, were drawn a hundred tales; And therein was the swinging censer showed, And therein altar candles feebly glowed And the bent priest upraised the sacred host. And when the dusk drew on, in times of frost, And new fires sparkled on the clean swept hearth And with pale tongues and laughing sound of mirth Licked the dry wood and carven iron dogs Whereon was piled the treasure of the logs, In the red glow that rose and waned again The pictured figures writhed as if in pain, Elijah shook his mantle, and the knight His spear, and 'mong the elves of foot-fall light One saw the dance grow faster, till the flame Once more drew in, and all things were the same.
Nor were there wanting fleshlier joys than these; For as the night grew closer and the trees Hissed in the wind, before the ruddy fire Was spread the napkin, white to a desire, ​Laid out with silver vessels and brown bread And some hot pasty smoking at the head With odorous vapour, and the jug afloat With bitter, amber ale that stings the throat Or figured glasses full of purple wine. Or should one ask for pleasures more divine, Then let him draw toward the pleasant blaze And in the warm still chamber, let him raise Blue wreaths of pungent vapor from the bowl, That glows and dusks like an ignited coal At every inhalation of sweet smoke. So shall he clear a stage for that quaint folk, The brood of dreams, that faëry puppet race That will not dance but on a vacant space; And purge from every prejudice or creed His easy spirit, that with greater speed, He may outrun the boundaries of art And grapple with grim questionings of heart.