Lyric Poem · Nature
Behold, As Goblins Dark Of Mien
1BEHOLD, as goblins dark of mien
2And portly tyrants dyed with crime
3Change, in the transformation scene,
4At Christmas, in the pantomime,
5Instanter, at the prompter's cough,
6The fairy bonnets them, and they
7Throw their abhorred carbuncles off
8And blossom like the flowers in May.
9- So mankind, to angelic eyes,
10So, through the scenes of life below,
11In life's ironical disguise,
12A travesty of man, ye go:
13But fear not: ere the curtain fall,
14Death in the transformation scene
15Steps forward from her pedestal,
16Apparent, as the fairy Queen;
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“Behold, As Goblins Dark Of Mien” by Robert Louis Stevenson — quilloak.com/poems/behold-as-goblins-dark-of-mien
Quick facts
- Poem
- Behold, As Goblins Dark Of Mien
- Poet
- Robert Louis Stevenson
- Length
- 24 lines
- Form
- Lyric Poem
- Themes
- Nature, Love, Death & Loss
Craft notes
How this poem works
Measured from the text on this page, not copied from a summary. Counts are approximate: syllables and rhymes come from the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary, which models General American English, so dialect, older pronunciation, and performance can all change what you hear.
- Shape
- 24 lines · 6 quatrains
- Line length
- Mostly 8-syllable lines (tetrameter length).
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Text, source & rights
A traceable edition
Full-text display is based on the committed source record and a United States term-expiry review.
- Author record
- Robert Louis Stevenson1850–1894
- Source record
- PoetryDBBehold, As Goblins Dark Of Mien by robert-louis-stevenson, PoetryDB transcription
- Display decision
- Full text · United States · reviewed 2026-07-18
- Publication record
- Not recorded in the imported source
- Text fingerprint
- SHA-256 75aafbabbd0d4e6d…
- Editorial handling
- Whitespace and stanza breaks normalized for web display; no material wording change recorded.