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Title: Moral Emblems I
Author: Robert Louis Stevenson [
More Titles by Stevenson]
Poem: I
See how the children in the print
Bound on the book to see what's in 't!
O, like these pretty babes, may you
Seize and APPLY this volume too!
And while your eye upon the cuts
With harmless ardour opes and shuts,
Reader, may your immortal mind
To their sage lessons not be blind.
Poem: II
Reader, your soul upraise to see,
In yon fair cut designed by me,
The pauper by the highwayside
Vainly soliciting from pride.
Mark how the Beau with easy air
Contemns the anxious rustic's prayer,
And, casting a disdainful eye,
Goes gaily gallivanting by.
He from the poor averts his head . . .
He will regret it when he's dead.
Poem: III--A PEAK IN DARIEN
Broad-gazing on untrodden lands,
See where adventurous Cortez stands;
While in the heavens above his head
The Eagle seeks its daily bread.
How aptly fact to fact replies:
Heroes and eagles, hills and skies.
Ye who contemn the fatted slave
Look on this emblem, and be brave.
Poem: IV
See in the print how, moved by whim,
Trumpeting Jumbo, great and grim,
Adjusts his trunk, like a cravat,
To noose that individual's hat.
The sacred Ibis in the distance
Joys to observe his bold resistance.
Poem: V
Mark, printed on the opposing page,
The unfortunate effects of rage.
A man (who might be you or me)
Hurls another into the sea.
Poor soul, his unreflecting act
His future joys will much contract,
And he will spoil his evening toddy
By dwelling on that mangled body.
[The end]
Robert Louis Stevenson's poem: Moral Emblems I
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