Robert Louis Stevenson's New Poems, and Variant Readings, assembled posthumously from manuscripts preserved across his wanderings, offers a rare vantage on the poet's private craft. The preface by Lloyd Osbourne notes that some poems were withheld for their intimacy, yet Stevenson kept them through all vicissitudes, suggesting he intended eventual publication. The collection's uneven merit—acknowledged by Osbourne—makes it a revealing document of Stevenson's authorial choices in diction, voice, and structure.

Readers encounter a poet who shifts between direct address and self-deprecating humor, as in the dedicatory poem to Underwoods, where he calls a critic his 'grandmamma' and invites both praise and execration. The love poems, in particular, show a sincerity that Osbourne calls 'really affecting,' often built on simple, repetitive phrasing and concrete imagery drawn from domestic life.

Diction and the Intimate Voice

Stevenson's diction in these poems is notably plain, favoring monosyllables and conversational rhythms. In 'My love was warm,' he writes: 'My love was warm; for that I crossed / The mountains and the sea'—a directness that avoids ornament. The word 'trow' (believe) is a rare archaism, but elsewhere he uses modern, even colloquial terms like 'granny dear' and 'bombarder.' This mix of old and new creates a voice that feels both personal and slightly formal, as if speaking to a trusted friend.

In 'Go, little book,' Stevenson adopts the ancient trope of sending a book to a beloved, but fills it with specific, homely details: 'the blazing and the bickering logs, / The crowing child, the yawning dogs.' The diction here is sensory and concrete, grounding the poem in a real household. The repeated use of 'Nelly' and 'Otto' (the book's name) personalizes the address, making the poem a private gift rather than a public statement.

Structural Patterns in the Love Poems

Several love poems employ a pattern of conditional or concessive clauses that build toward a resolution. In 'Let love go, if go she will,' the opening line sets up a resigned acceptance, but the poem's structure moves through a series of 'if' statements to a final assertion of constancy. Similarly, 'I do not fear to own me kin' uses a repeated 'I am' structure to define the speaker's identity in relation to love.

Stevenson often breaks his stanzas with a rhetorical question or a turn in address. In 'Love, what is love?' the poem's title question is never directly answered; instead, the body lists contradictory experiences of love, leaving the question open. This structural choice mirrors the uncertainty of the speaker, who 'knows not how' to name the bond that holds him. The poems rarely resolve neatly, preferring to end on a note of reflection or a return to the opening image.

Occasional Verse and Self-Deprecation

Several poems are occasional, written for specific people or events. 'To the Commissioners of Northern Lights' is a humorous address to the lighthouse authority, while 'To Sydney' and 'To Charles Baxter' are personal tributes. In these, Stevenson's voice becomes more playful, using exaggerated metaphors and self-mockery. The dedicatory poem for Underwoods is a prime example: he calls the Spectator critic his 'unkind bombarder' and 'laudator,' and ends with 'Still, if you love me, criticise!'

This self-deprecating tone appears also in 'Apologetic Postscript of a Year Later,' where he apologizes for a previous poem's sentiment. The structure of these occasional poems often includes a direct address to the recipient, a list of shared memories or grievances, and a closing that returns to the present moment. They reveal Stevenson's ability to blend wit with genuine feeling, and his willingness to expose his own foibles.

Imagery of Travel and Domesticity

Stevenson's imagery in this collection oscillates between the far-flung and the intimate. Poems like 'The Far-Farers' evoke 'White sails / On the blue bay' and 'the far-farers draw away,' while others, like 'Before this little gift was come,' focus on the home: 'the door of where the eternal dwell' and 'the tune of little feet.' This contrast reflects Stevenson's own life as a traveler who nevertheless valued domestic stability.

In 'Go, little book,' the poem's journey from the writer to Nelly's hand is imagined in detail, but the destination is a cozy room with 'the blazing and the bickering logs.' The sea and the wind are 'distant undetermined din' outside, while inside, 'our Nelly going to and fro.' This juxtaposition of outer voyage and inner haven recurs throughout the collection, often in the same poem, creating a tension between movement and rest.

Readers approaching New Poems, and Variant Readings should attend to the poems as individual artifacts rather than as a unified sequence. The collection's value lies in its raw, unpolished moments—the direct address, the self-mocking asides, the domestic vignettes. Stevenson's authorial choices in diction and structure reveal a poet who valued sincerity over perfection, and who used the lyric form to capture fleeting emotions and relationships. The poems reward close reading for their craft, even when they do not achieve the polish of his published work.