A young Hawaiian princess of mixed heritage departs her sun-warmed tropical home to travel to Scotland. The poem bids her farewell with tender affection, noting that she is light of heart and bright of face, born of two bloodlines blended together. Her departure leaves a sense of absence behind. The beloved banyan tree under whose shade she used to play will stand empty, and those remaining will look for her in vain among its familiar shadows. The peacocks that cry at dusk, the palms swaying in the island wind, and her father sitting alone beneath that great tree all form a portrait of what she leaves behind. Yet the journey northward to Scotland, though it brings colder and rainier skies, is imagined with warmth and hope. The Scottish islands, ordinarily grey and storm-lashed, are envisioned brightening unusually at her arrival, casting aside their characteristic tempests to greet her with rare sunshine. The land itself is pictured smiling in response to her presence. The poem is accompanied by a prose dedication explaining that it was composed in April, during what is called the April of her life, meaning her youth. The dedication encourages the princess, when she arrives in Scotland and finds rain beating against the window as expected, to look at the poem as she might look at a pressed flower gathered from home. In doing so she will be carried back in memory to her islands, to the banyan's great shadow, to the sounds and warmth of Hawaii, and to the image of her father waiting there. The overall feeling is one of affectionate melancholy mixed with gentle optimism, celebrating the princess as a bridge between two worlds while acknowledging the bittersweet nature of her departure and the longing that separation brings to those left behind.
By Robert Louis Stevenson · First published 1889 · Genre: Poetry, Biographical Poetry, Elegy