Record Number: 17760
Reading Experience:
Evidence:
'The authorship of these beautiful verses has been most truculently fought about; but whoever wrote them (and it seems as if this Logan had) they are lovely. What time the pea puts on the bloom Though fliest the vocal vale, An annual guest, in other lands Another spring to hail. Sweet bird! thy bower is ever green, The sky is ever clear; Thou hast no sorrow in thy song, No winter in thy year. O could I fly, I'd fly with thee! We'd make on joyful wing Our annual visit o'er the globe, Companions of the spring.'
Century:1850-1899
Date:4 Oct 1873
Country:Scotland
Timeevening: 8 pm
Place:specific address: 17 Heriot Row, Edinburgh
Type of Experience(Reader):
silent aloud unknown
solitary in company unknown
single serial unknown
(Listener):
solitary in company unknown
single serial unknown
Reader / Listener / Reading Group:
Reader: Age:Adult (18-100+)
Gender:Male
Date of Birth:13 Nov 1850
Socio-Economic Group:Professional / academic / merchant / farmer
Occupation:writer
Religion:atheist
Country of Origin:Scotland
Country of Experience:Scotland
Listeners present if any:e.g family, servants, friends
n/a
Additional Comments:
n/a
Text Being Read:
Author: Title:Ode to the Cuckoo
Genre:Poetry
Form of Text:Print: Book
Publication Detailsn/a
Provenanceunknown
Source Information:
Record ID:17760
Source:Robert Louis Stevenson
Editor:Bradford Booth
Title:The Letters of Robert Louis Stevenson
Place of Publication:New Haven and London
Date of Publication:1994
Vol:1
Page:330
Additional Comments:
additional editor Ernest Mehew. Letter to Frances Sitwell.
Citation:
Robert Louis Stevenson, Bradford Booth (ed.), The Letters of Robert Louis Stevenson, (New Haven and London, 1994), 1, p. 330, http://www.open.ac.uk/Arts/reading/UK/record_details.php?id=17760, accessed: 24 April 2024
Additional Comments:
RLS believes the poem to have been written by John Logan (as does Arthur Quiller-Couch in The Oxford Book of English Verse and www.wikisource.org), but the footnote p 330 Booth/Mehew and also the Wikipedia entry on Michael Bruce attributes it to Bruce and that Logan appropriated it as his own. Hence RLS's comments about the authorship. For this RED entry I have attributed it to Bruce.
