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Wallace Irwin (1875-1959) http://tinyurl.com/IWallace

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Stevenson Fountain

From "At the Stevenson Fountain," 1898.

Reader: Kevin Hearle

Although Robert Louis Stevenson spent less than a year in California, he left a cultural legacy here almost as enduring as that of any native writer.

Wallace Irwin was a budding journalist with an interest in light verse when he penned "At the Stevenson Fountain," a sonnet celebrating the erection of San Francisco's Portsmouth Square memorial to the tubercular Scottish writer.

Perchance, from out the thousands passing by,–
The city's hopeless lotos-eaters these,
Blown by the four winds of the Seven Seas
From common want to common company,–
Perchance someone may lift his heavy eye
And smile with freshening memory when he sees
Those golden pennons bellying in the breeze
And spread for ports where fair adventures lie.

And O, that such a one might stay a space
And taste of sympathy, till to his ears
Might come the tale of him who knew the grace
To suffer sweetly through the bitter years,
To catch the smiles concealed in Fortune's face,
And draw contentment from a cup of tears.

Plans for the Stevenson memorial were first conceived by architect Willis Polk and artist Bruce Porter who first sketched plans for the fountain on a restaurant tablecloth.