A NIGHT IN FRANCE

By

Robert Louis Stevenson

(Unpublished)

In remote thickets toward after-
noon, the wind sounds now and again
in the distance, and the butterflies
are sown by faint airs here and there
like thistledown (sown and carried
away again by the faint airs like
thistledown) -

The perfect southern moonlight
fills the great night; along the coast
the bare peaks faint and dwindle
against the intense blue sky; and far
up on the glimmering mountain sides the
dark woods design their big (full
shapes in black) fantastic profile. The
sea trembles with light; white hotels
and villas show lit windows far along
the curved beach, and from above envy

the silent stars. The strange night
sky endues itself in monstrous
space over all, the large moon beams
forward. The still trees stand in
relief, aloof, one from the other,
with the light all about them, naked,
bare, in the moonlight.

Up in the room the piano sounds
and into the southern night, note
follows note, chord follows chord, in
quaint, sad, northland cadence. Do
not the still trees wonder, and the
flat bright sea, and the lonely
glimmering hilltops far withdrawn into
the purple sky? For this is no
squeak of southern pipe, no light
melody of provencal farandole; to these
airs, brown feet never tripped on the
warm earth, nor boatman cheered his
way across deep midland waters. Wild
and shrill ring out the reels. Dun-

barton drums beat bonny. The wind
sounds over the rainy moorland;
Wandering Willie is far from home.
Clear sad voices sing in the gray
dawn sadly; for a country made deso-
late, for the bold silver that shall
no more clatter forth in pay, and
the good King that shall come home
no more. The sun sets behind Ben
Ledi. Macleod's wizzard flag sallies
from the gray castle. Paint and fair,
in the misty summer afternoon, reach
out the purple braes, where the soft
cloud shadows linger and dwindle.
At home, by the ingle, the goodwife
darns her goodman's gray breaks. And
my love, up in the north, is like the
red red rose.

O sound of the wind among my own
bleak hills; the snow, and the cold,
and the hard thin faces of steadfast

serious people. The boats go out
at even, under the moon; sail by
sail they spread on the great uneven
sea; at morn, in the rain plains,
boat by boat comes back with its
glittering burthen.

In home grown fields, wander
white sheep, patiently stand the
shivering cattle.