Lyric Poem · Death & Loss
Requiem
by Robert Louis Stevenson · 1887
Under the wide and starry sky,
Dig the grave and let me lie.
Glad did I live and gladly die,
And I laid me down with a will.
This be the verse you grave for me:
Here he lies where he longed to be;
Home is the sailor; home from sea,
And the hunter home from the hill.
Full-text availability follows the United States display decision recorded below; status can differ elsewhere.
“Requiem” by Robert Louis Stevenson — quilloak.com/poems/requiem-stevenson
Quick facts
- Poem
- Requiem
- Poet
- Robert Louis Stevenson
- Published
- 1887
- Length
- 8 lines
- Form
- Lyric Poem, Elegy
- Themes
- Death & Loss, Peace, Short
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
- 8 lines · 2 quatrains
- End rhyme
- AAAB in every stanza.
- 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 cited edition and a United States term-expiry review.
- Author record
- Robert Louis Stevenson1850–1894
- Source record
- WikisourceRequiem by robert-louis-stevenson, Wikisource transcription
- Display decision
- Full text · United States · reviewed 2026-07-18
- Publication record
- 1887
- Text fingerprint
- SHA-256 e2455109a335fb9b…
- Editorial handling
- Whitespace and stanza breaks normalized for web display; no material wording change recorded.
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