The frozen peaks he once explored, But now he’s dead and by the board. How better far at home to have stayed Attended by the parlour maid, And warmed his knees before the fire Until the hour when folks retire! So, if you would be spared to friends. Do nothing but for business ends.
Where this text comes from
First published in The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson: Appendix (1898). This date is uncertain. Taken from the 1898 Appendix volume of the Edinburgh Edition. For most of these verses that is not the first printing: the volume reproduces in facsimile the Davos Press cuts and rhymes that Stevenson wrote and engraved between the autumn of 1880 and the summer of 1882 and that his stepson Lloyd Osbourne printed at the time. The volume's own bibliographical note states that only the two Moral Tales, 'Robin and Ben' and 'The Builder's Doom', are printed here for the first time. Which Davos booklet printed a given rhyme, and in what year, is not established here. [1]
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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–#L8.
Cite this poem
Robert Louis Stevenson (1850–1894).
“The Frozen Peaks He Once Explored.” First published in The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson: Appendix (1898).
Text: Poem Index, https://poemindex.org/robert-louis-stevenson/the-frozen-peaks-he-once-explored/.
Append #L14 to cite line 14, or #L4-L9 for lines 4–9.
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