Mary Paulson-Ellis
Delighted to celebrate one of Edinburgh’s native sons, Robert Louis Stevenson, with #RLSDay 2016 from Edinburgh City of Literature.
Robert Louis Stevenson was born and lived only twenty minutes walk from where I stay in Edinburgh. I love to go past his old family home and see the small brass plaque on the lamp post with the last verse of his poem, The Lamplighter.
For we are very lucky, with a lamp before the door,
And Leerie stops to light it as he lights so many more;
And O! before you hurry by with ladder and with light,
O Leerie, see a little child and nod to him tonight!
This is taken from, A Child’s Garden of Verses much of which celebrates the great power of dreams and imagination to transport us to new worlds, both dark and light – the best possible place for a writer.
Edinburgh City of Literature and other writers and organisations in Edinburgh have been tweeting about RLS all this week in the run up to his birthday on 13 November.