Lyric Poem · Love
Music At The Villa Marina
1FOR some abiding central source of power,
2Strong-smitten steady chords, ye seem to flow
3And, flowing, carry virtue. Far below,
4The vain tumultuous passions of the hour
5Fleet fast and disappear; and as the sun
6Shines on the wake of tempests, there is cast
7O'er all the shattered ruins of my past
8A strong contentment as of battles won.
9And yet I cry in anguish, as I hear
10The long drawn pageant of your passage roll
11Magnificently forth into the night.
12To yon fair land ye come from, to yon sphere
13Of strength and love where now ye shape your flight,
14O even wings of music, bear my soul!
15Ye have the power, if but ye had the will,
16Strong-smitten steady chords in sequence grand,
17To bear me forth into that tranquil land
18Where good is no more ravelled up with ill;
19Where she and I, remote upon some hill
20Or by some quiet river's windless strand,
21May live, and love, and wander hand in hand,
22And follow nature simply, and be still.
Full-text availability follows the United States display decision recorded below; status can differ elsewhere.
“Music At The Villa Marina” by Robert Louis Stevenson — quilloak.com/poems/music-at-the-villa-marina
Quick facts
- Poem
- Music At The Villa Marina
- Poet
- Robert Louis Stevenson
- Length
- 28 lines
- Form
- Lyric Poem
- Themes
- Love, Peace, Nature
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
- 28 lines · 4 stanzas of 6–8 lines
- Line length
- Mostly 10-syllable lines (pentameter length).
- Refrain
- “O even wings of music, bear my soul!”Repeated lines act as the poem's hinge or drumbeat.
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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
- PoetryDBMusic At The Villa Marina 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 f3d7116ab8b330d0…
- Editorial handling
- Whitespace and stanza breaks normalized for web display; no material wording change recorded.