To the Commissioners of Northern Lights Robert Louis Stevenson I send to you, commissioners, A paper that may please ye, sirs (For troth they say it might be worse An’ I believe’t) And on your business lay my curse Before I leav’t. I thocht I’d serve wi’ you, sirs, yince, But I’ve thocht better of it since; The matter I will nowise mince, But tell ye true: I’ll service wi’ some ither prince, An’ no wi’ you. I’ve no been very deep, ye’ll think, Cam’ delicately to the brink An’ when the water gart me shrink Straucht took the rue, An’ didna stoop my fill to drink— I own it true. I kent on cape and isle, a light Burnt fair an’ clearly ilka night; But at the service I took fright, As sune’s I saw, An’ being still a neophite Gaed straucht awa’. Anither course I now begin, The weeg I’Il cairry for my Sin, The court my voice shall echo in, An’—wha can tell?— Some ither day I may be yin O’ you mysel’.
I send to you, commissioners,
A paper that may please ye, sirs
(For troth they say it might be worse
An’ I believe’t)…
—Robert Louis Stevenson, “To the Commissioners of Northern Lights”, which RLS sent along with his design for “a new form of intermittent light”
#InternationalLighthouseWeekend
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