Requiem

I mentioned a few days ago that I had been lucky, on a hot December day many years ago, to be escorted by a bunch of 6th year pupils from Papauta Girls' School in Samoa to the top of Mount Vaea.  They thought I had to go there because I was Scots.   And, of course, they were right.

Stevenson wanted his poem "Requiem" carved on his grave stone.

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.


And so it is.    Unfortunately, they have misquoted the second last line -
Home is the sailor, home from the sea.....

It is a lovely spot, looking out over the sea to the route taken by boats approaching Apia on the coast below.