N. C. Wyeth Illustration of Blind Pew

Argentinian poet Jorge Luis Borges was a big admirer of Robert Louis Stevenson (as am I). The above illustration of the old pirate Blind Pew by N. C. Wyeth was for a 1911 edition of Stevenson’s Treasure Island. Here is a poem by Borges on the subject of the character who dominates the first chapter of the book:

Blind Pew

Far from the sea and from the lovely war
(For so love praises most what has been lost),
This blind, foot-weary pirate would exhaust
Road after English road or sodden moor.

Barked at by every dog from every farm,
Laughingstock of the young boys of the village,
He slept a poor sleep, trying to keep warm
And freezing in the black dust of the ditches.

But in the end, on far-off golden beaches,
A buried treasure would be his, he knew;
This softened some the hardness of his path.
You are like him—on other golden beaches

Your incorruptible treasure waits for you:
Immense and formless and essential death.