To see the infinite pity of this place, The mangled limb, the devastated face, The innocent sufferer smiling at the rod— A fool were tempted to deny his God. He sees, he shrinks. But if he gaze again, Lo, beauty springing from the breast of pain; He marks the sisters on the mournful shores; And even a fool is silent and adores.
Where this text comes from
First published in Songs of Travel and Other Verses (1896). This date is uncertain. Taken from the 1896 Chatto & Windus volume, the first separate edition. That is not the poems' first appearance: Sidney Colvin's prefatory note to this volume states that they had already been included in the Edinburgh Edition of Stevenson's works. Which printing came first, and in what year, has not been established here. [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–#L8.
Cite this poem
Robert Louis Stevenson (1850–1894).
“To Mother Maryanne.” First published in Songs of Travel and Other Verses (1896).
Text: Poem Index, https://poemindex.org/robert-louis-stevenson/to-mother-maryanne/.
Append #L14 to cite line 14, or #L4-L9 for lines 4–9.
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