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Songs of Travel

Song Cycle by Georgina Elsie Smith

?. The vagabond  [sung text not yet checked]

Language: English 
Give to me the life I love,
Let the lave go by me,
Give the jolly heaven above
And the byway nigh me.
Bed in the bush with stars to see,
Bread I dip in the river -
There's the life for a man like me,
There's the life for ever.

Let the blow fall soon or late,
Let what will be o'er me;
Give the face of earth around
And the road before me.
Wealth I seek not, hope nor love,
Nor a friend to know me;
All I seek, the heaven above
And the road below me.

Or let autumn fall on me
Where afield I linger,
Silencing the bird on tree,
Biting the blue finger.
White as meal the frosty field -
Warm the fireside haven -
Not to autumn will I yield,
Not to winter even!

Let the blow fall soon or late,
Let what will be o'er me;
Give the face of earth around,
And the road before me.
Wealth I [ask]1 not, hope nor love,
Nor a friend to know me;
All I ask, the heaven above
And the road below me.

Text Authorship:

  • by Robert Louis Stevenson (1850 - 1894), "The vagabond", subtitle: "To an air of Schubert", appears in Songs of Travel and other verses, no. 1, first published 1896

See other settings of this text.

Available translations, adaptations or excerpts, and transliterations (if applicable):

  • CAT Catalan (Català) (Salvador Pila) , copyright © 2016, (re)printed on this website with kind permission
  • ITA Italian (Italiano) (Ferdinando Albeggiani) , "Il vagabondo", copyright © 2005, (re)printed on this website with kind permission
  • LIT Lithuanian (Lietuvių kalba) (Giedrius Prunskus) , copyright © 2023, (re)printed on this website with kind permission

View original text (without footnotes)

Confirmed with The Complete Poetry of Robert Louis Stevenson: A Child's Garden of Verses, e-artnow, 2015 (via Google Books).

Note: "lave" = "that which is left"
1 Dunhill: "seek"

Researcher for this text: Emily Ezust [Administrator]
Total word count: 186
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