Watching

DOCTOR JEKYLL
Joe Stephenson
UK, 2023

ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON
From the Foreword to UNDERWOODS

Of all my verse, like not a single line;
But like my title, for it is not mine.
That title from a better man I stole;
Ah, how much better, had I stol’n the whole!

ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON
"The Vagabond"

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.

ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON
"I will make you brooches and toys for your delight"

I will make you brooches and toys for your delight
Of bird-song at morning and star-shine at night.
I will make a palace fit for you and me
Of green days in forests and blue days at sea.

I will make my kitchen, and you shall keep your room,
Where white flows the river and bright blows the broom,
And you shall wash your linen and keep your body white
In rainfall at morning and dewfall at night.

And this shall be for music when no one else is near,
The fine song for singing, the rare song to hear!
That only I remember, that only you admire,
Of the broad road that stretches and the roadside fire.

ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON
The New Arabian Nights

I regard you with an indifference closely bordering on aversion.

Currently Watching

DR. JEKYLL AND MR. HYDE
Rouben Mamoulian
USA, 1931

ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON

"The Flowers"

____________________

All the names I know from nurse:

Gardener's garters, Shepherd's purse,

Bachelor's buttons, Lady's smock,

And the Lady Hollyhock.

Fairy places, fairy things,

Fairy woods where the wild bee wings,

Tiny trees for tiny dames -

These must all be fairy names!

Tiny woods below whose boughs

Shady fairies weave a house;

Tiny tree-tops, roses or thyme,

Where the braver fairies climb!

Fair are grown-up people's trees,

But the fairest woods are these;

Where if I were not so tall,

I should live for good and all.

ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON

"The Land of Story Books"

____________________

At evening, when the lamp is lit,

Around the fire my parents sit;

They sit at home and talk and sing.

And do not play at anything.

Now, with my little gun, I crawl

All in the dark along the wall,

And follow round the forest track

Away behind the sofa back.

There, in the night, where none can spy,

All in my hunter's camp I lie,

And play at books that I have read

Till it is time to go to bed.

There are the hills, these are the woods,

These are my starry solitudes;

And there the river by whose brink

The roaring lions come to drink.

I see the others far away

As if in firelit camp they lay,

And I, like an Indian scout,

Around their party prowled about.

So, when my nurse comes in for me,

Home I return across the sea,

And go to bed with backward looks

At my dear land of Story-books.

ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON

Don’t judge each day by the harvest you reap, but by the seeds that you plant.