In "The Vagabond," why do you think Robert Louis Stevenson repeats the lines "all I ask, the heaven above/ and the road below me" in the second and...

These particular lines are from a Robert Louis Stevenson poem entitled “The Vagabond” which is included in a collection of poetry called Songs of Travel and Other Verses. A vagabond is one who travels, one who wanders, without the benefit of a stable home. Stevenson, in this poem, asks for the life of a vagabond or wanderer. He is asking for only “the heaven above and the road below me.” His desire is not to have a stable home, but to have the sky above him and road beneath him on which to walk. The first lines of the poem say, “Give to me the life I love,” the life of a wanderer, and “Give the jolly heaven above/And the byway nigh me.” This is the same sentiment as asking for the sky or “heaven” above and the “road” or “byway” beneath. His home, his place, is to wander, with sky above and road below, on which he continues his wandering. It replaces the home he does not have. If you examine the rest of the poem, you will see many other references to the life of a wanderer.

Robert Louis Stevenson, nineteenth century poet, novelist, and essayist, was, himself, a wanderer of sorts. Due to ill health, he moved from place to place, far from him native Scotland, attempting to find some relief from his condition. He finally settled on the island of Samoa, where he died, and was buried, in 1894.