Sing clearlier, Muse, or evermore be still, Sing truer or no longer sing! No more the voice of melancholy Jaques To wake a weeping echo in the hill; But as the boy, the pirate of the spring, From the green elm a living linnet takes, One natural verse recapture—then be still.
Where this text comes from
First published in Underwoods (1887). First located printing is this volume; an earlier periodical printing has not been established. [1]
Structure read from the source's markup; the words have not been compared against a page scan. Last checked 2026-08-20.
Taken from Standard Ebooks, standardebooks/robert-louis-stevenson_poetry, poetry.xhtml. Rights: public domain (SE dedication; underlying text pre-1931).
Earlier sources (8)
This poem as JSON or plain text . Line anchors #L1–#L7.
Cite this poem
Robert Louis Stevenson (1850–1894).
“Sing Clearlier, Muse, or Evermore Be Still.” First published in Underwoods (1887).
Text: Poem Index, https://poemindex.org/robert-louis-stevenson/sing-clearlier-muse-or-evermore-be-still/.
Append #L14 to cite line 14, or #L4-L9 for lines 4–9.
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