On Contentment

Not Kipling...

This, from the pen of Robert Louis Stevenson, is my fav from any poet not Shakespeare or Kipling :-)

EVENSONG

THE embers of the day are red
Beyond the murky hill.
The kitchen smokes: the bed
In the darkling house is spread:
The great sky darkens overhead,
And the great woods are shrill.
So far have I been led,
Lord, by Thy will:
So far I have followed, Lord, and wondered still.

The breeze from the enbalmed land
Blows sudden toward the shore,
And claps my cottage door.
I hear the signal, Lord - I understand.
The night at Thy command
Comes. I will eat and sleep and will not question more.

Stephenson wrote that heartfelt piece (as he wrote Requiem) after long years of ill health, financial and critical setbacks and during his struggles for justice for the Samoan peoples. Now, that's contentment. A well-crafted film of Stephenson's life is one I'd gladly pay theater prices to see. (Operative words: well-crafted.)

Aside: I had lost track of this for almost 30 years, after gifting a book with my one copy to someone just discovering a love of poetry, and had only my memory of the poem. I regularly (I now see) misquoted it to the tune of two wrong word choices *sigh*. Now, thanks to the good folks at Gutenberg.org and elsewhere, it's at my fingertips day or night.