Page:Poems by Robert Louis Stevenson, Hitherto unpublished, 1921.djvu/69

 LINK YOUR ARM IN MINE, MY LAD

1872

While this poem is, as its title indicates, a song doubtless sung by Stevenson and his student companions as they quaffed their glasses in the Edinburgh winter of 1871-1872, it is possible that the "lad" who appears in the first line may have been, not any companion in general, but his cousin, the artist and critic of art, Robert Alan Stevenson. The point of view here shown as to the value of endeavor and the relative unimportance of the individual's place in the social scheme, is one that both in verse and in conversation frequently appears in the exchange of thoughts between the two cousins. However this may be, the poem considered merely as a student song presents so unusual a juxtaposition of ideas as to render it unique. If, for a moment, we omit consideration of the chorus, and study the first four stanzas, we find Stevenson closely following the model of student drinking songs such as may be read by the score in the anthology of John Addington Symonds. The linking of the arms of boon companions, the animadversions [ 61 ]