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Robert Louis Stevenson's "Consolation" · The Daily Poem

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  [music]
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  SPEAKER_00: Welcome back to The Daily Poem, a podcast from Goldberry Studios.
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  SPEAKER_00: I'm Sean Johnson, and today is Friday, July 31st, 2026.
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  SPEAKER_00: Today's poem is by Robert Louis Stevenson.
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  SPEAKER_00: It's called Consolation.
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  SPEAKER_00: And while I don't think it's fair to classify Stevenson exclusively as
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  SPEAKER_00: a children's author,
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  SPEAKER_00: it's certainly the case that his poetry tends to be aimed towards
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  SPEAKER_00: a juvenile audience.
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  SPEAKER_00: Not only his most famous poetic work,
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  SPEAKER_00: Child's Garden of Verses,
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  SPEAKER_00: but many of the other occasional verse that he wrote tended to be meant
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  SPEAKER_00: for children.
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  SPEAKER_00: I was thinking this week about today's poem in particular.
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  SPEAKER_00: I learned the sad news of the passing of Irish singer Glenn Hansard,
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  SPEAKER_00: and then was reading and listening to the ways that his friends spoke about him
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  SPEAKER_00: to one another,
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  SPEAKER_00: and then Even going back a few years and looking at some things that he said and did
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  SPEAKER_00: upon the occasion of the passing of his own friends.
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  SPEAKER_00: And it got me thinking about the ways we go about consoling people after the death
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  SPEAKER_00: of a loved one.
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  SPEAKER_00: And as the father of five children,
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  SPEAKER_00: I then began to think about the differences between how we might talk to adults
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  SPEAKER_00: about death versus children.
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  SPEAKER_00: And I was brought around to this poem by Stevenson.
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  SPEAKER_00: It's interesting.
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  SPEAKER_00: A pastoral consideration, how you speak to another person about death.
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  SPEAKER_00: But it strikes me that it's different with an adult who understands fully,
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  SPEAKER_00: or at least as much as we can, what death means.
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  SPEAKER_00: But to a very young person,
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  SPEAKER_00: to a young child, there's almost another task that has to be completed first.
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  SPEAKER_00: The consolation has to be accompanied by a kind of education.
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  SPEAKER_00: You have to give a child a framework in which to even understand death
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  SPEAKER_00: before you can really give them real comfort.
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  SPEAKER_00: And while it might not be the tack we would all take,
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  SPEAKER_00: I think Stevenson makes a sincere and a really moving effort here to do just that.
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  SPEAKER_00: So here is the poem, Consolation.
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  SPEAKER_00: Though he that ever kind and true Kept stoutly step by step with you,
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  SPEAKER_00: Your whole long gusty lifetime through,
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  SPEAKER_00: Be gone a while before,
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  SPEAKER_00: Be now a moment gone before,
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  SPEAKER_00: Yet doubt not, soon the seasons Shall restore your friend to you.
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  SPEAKER_00: He has but turned the corner,
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  SPEAKER_00: still he pushes on with right goodwill,
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  SPEAKER_00: through mire and marsh,
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  SPEAKER_00: by hue and hill,
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  SPEAKER_00: that selfsame arduous way,
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  SPEAKER_00: that selfsame upland hopeful way,
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  SPEAKER_00: that you and he through many a doubtful day attempted still.
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  SPEAKER_00: He is not dead,
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  SPEAKER_00: this friend,
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  SPEAKER_00: not dead,
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  SPEAKER_00: but in the path we mortals tread,
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  SPEAKER_00: got some few trifling steps ahead and nearer to the end.
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  SPEAKER_00: So that you too,
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  SPEAKER_00: once past the bend, shall meet again as face to face this friend you fancy dead.
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  SPEAKER_00: Push gaily on, strong heart, the while you travel forward mile by mile.
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  SPEAKER_00: He loiters with a backward smile till you can overtake and strains his eyes
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  SPEAKER_00: to search his wake or whistling as he sees you through the break waits on a stile.
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  SPEAKER_00: This has been The Daily Poem.
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  SPEAKER_00: Thank you for listening.
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  SPEAKER_00: We'll be back next week with more poetry for you.
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  SPEAKER_00: In the meantime,
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  SPEAKER_00: find us at dailypoempod.substack.com to listen to past episodes of The Daily Poem
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  SPEAKER_00: or subscribe and support the show.
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  SPEAKER_00: For all of us at Goldberry Studios, I'm Sean Johnson wishing you happy reading.