New Collected Rhymes, by Andrew Lang
Transcribed from the 1905 Longmans,best scratch art kits for 5 year olds Green and Co. edition byDavid Price, email [email protected] BY LONGMANS, GREEN, AND CO. 1905 All rights reserved This poor little flutter of rhymeswould not have been let down the wind: the project would havebeen abandoned but for the too flattering encouragement of aresponsible friend. I trust that he may not “live torue the day,” like Keith of Craigentolly in the ballad. The “Loyal Lyrics” on Charles and James and theWhite Rose must not be understood as implying a rebellious desirefor the subversion of the present illustrious dynasty. “These are but symbols that I sing, over the water that divides us from the voices and faces ofour desires and dreams. p. viOf theballads, The Young Ruthvenand The Queen of Spainwere written in competition with the street minstrels of theclose of the sixteenth century. The legend on which TheYoung Ruthvenis based is well known; The Queen ofSpainis the story of the Florencia, a ship of theSpanish Armada, wrecked in Tobermory Bay, as it was told to me bya mariner in the Sound of Mull. In Keith ofCraigentollythe family and territorial names of the hero orvillain are purposely altered, so as to avoid injuringsusceptibilities and arousing unavailing regrets. DEDICATORY PAGE In Augustinum Dobson 3 LOYAL LYRICS How the Maid Marched fromBlois 7 Lone Places of the Deer 9 An Old Song 10 Jacobite “Auld Lang Syne” 12 The Prince’s Birthday 14 The Tenth of June, 1715 15 White Rose Day 17 Red and White Roses 18 The Bonnie Banks o’ LochLomond 19 Kenmure 21 Culloden 23 The Last of the Leal 25 Jeanne d’Arc 27 CRICKET RHYMES To Helen 31 Ballade of Dead Cricketers 32 Brahma 34 p. viiiCRITICALOF LIFE, ART, AND LITERATURE Gainsborough Ghosts 37 A Remonstrance with theFair 39 Rhyme of Rhymes 42 Rhyme of Oxford CockneyRhymes 44 Rococo 47 The New Orpheus to hisEurydice 47 The Food of Fiction 59 “A Highly Valuable Chain ofThoughts” 51 Matrimony 53 Piscatori Piscator 55 The Contented Angler 56 Off my Game 58 The Property of a Gentleman who hasGiven up Collecting 60 The Ballade of the SubconsciousSelf 62 Ballade of the Optimist 64 Zimbabwe 66 Love’s Cryptogram 68 Tusitala 70 Disdainful Diaphenia 72 Tall Salmacis 73 JUBILEE POEMS What Francesco said of theJubilee 72 The Poet and the Jubilee 79 On any Beach 81 Ode of Jubilee 82 Jubilee before Revolution 84 p. ixFOLKSONGS French Peasant Songs 89 BALLADS The Young Ruthven 93 The Queen o’ Spain and the BauldMcLean 97 Keith of Craigentolly 101 Jam RudeDonatum. Dear Poet, nowturned out to grass Back to the golden prime of Anne! We live too early, or too late, p.4By duchesses with roses crowned, Bring back these years in verse or prose, Forget the dunces (there is none And thus at ending of your span— (Supposed to be narrated by James Power, or Polwarth, herScottish banner-painter.) The Maiden calledfor her great destrier, Then I saw the Maiden mount and ride, p.8Her banner was borne by a page of grace, A moment she turned to the people there, Lone places of thedeer, Here has he lurked, and here 1750. Oh, it’s hame,hame, hame, May the lads Prince Charlie led Bid the seas arise and stand Lochiel’sRegiment, 1747. Though now we takeKing Lewie’s fee For, he that did proud Pharaoh crush, For oft we’ve garred the red coatsrun, The Duke may with the Devil drink, p.13For he who did proud Pharaoh crush, Rome,31st December, 1721. (A new-born star shone, which is figured on an early Medal ofPrince Charles.) A wonderful star shone forth Lost is thestar in the night, (Being a Song writ for a lady born on June 10th, the birthdayof his Most Sacred Majesty King James III. and VIII.) Day of the King andthe flower! Day of the flower and the King! Day of my love and my may, p.16Black as the blackbird’s wing When shall the joy bells ring? June 10,1688. ’Twas a day offaith and flowers, White roses over the heather, Red roses under thesun White roses under the moon Red roses for beef and beer; Red roses for wealth and might; 1746. There’s anending o’ the dance, and fair Morag’s safe inFrance, Soye’ll tak the high road, and I’ll tak the laighroad, For my love’s heart brake in twa, whenshe kenned the Cause’s fa’, p.20While there’s heather on the hill shall myvengeance ne’er be still, Soye’ll tak the high road, and I’ll tak the laighroad, 1715. “Theheather’s in a blaze, Willie, “Remember great Montrose, Willie, “There’s Gordons in the North,Willie, “A trusty sword to draw, Willie, p.22He cast ae look across his lands, Kenmures have fought in Galloway It little skills what faith men vaunt, Dark, dark was theday when we looked on Culloden There was wind, there was rain, there was fireon their faces, Unfed and unmarshalled, outworn andoutnumbered, p.24Ah, woe worth you, Sleat, andthe faith that you vowed, Where the graves of Clan Chattan are clusteredtogether, And a whisper awoke on the wilderness,sighing, December31, 1787. Here’s ahealth to every man Oh, round Charlie many ran, Ne’er a hope from plot or plan, p.26Help is none from Crown or clan, The honour of aloyal boy, Ere any come like her who fought p.28Saints Michael, Catherine, Margaret, (After seeing her bowl with herusual success.) St. Leonard’s Hall. Helen, thy bowlingis to me The music of the moaning sea, Upon our old monastic pitch, Ah, where be Beldhamnow, and Brett, And where is Lambert, that would get p.33Tom Sueter, too, the ladies’ pet, Envoy. Prince, canst thou moralise the lay? AfterEmerson. If the wild bowlerthinks he bowls, In TheGrosvenor Gallery. They smile upon thewestern wall, Think, when the tumult and the crowd p.38Of us they speak as we of them, Ah, true, we lack the charm, the wit, In Art the statesman yet shall live, There are thoughtsthat the mind cannot fathom, Ah, why is each “passingdepression” p.40Dear ladies, in vain you approach us, Yes, a Vice with her lips full of laughter, What is sauce for the goose, for the gander There are cakes, there is ale—ay, andginger Wild on the mountainpeak the wind For “wind” I do not rhyme to“mind,” I never met a single soul We say, “Now don’t do thatagen,” p.43Oh, which are wrong or which are right? To hold that “love” can rhyme to“prove” This was our learned fathers’ wont (Exhibited in the OxfordMagazine.) Though Keats rhymed“ear” to “Cytherea,” Another poet, X. Y. Z., p.45Unkindly G—y’s raging pen Yes, G—y shines the worst of all, Ye Oxford Dons that Cockneys be, p.46Oh, Hoxford was a pleasant plice Now, if you ask to what are due (“My name is also named‘Played Out.’”) When first we heard Rossetti sing, (And this is how we twanged it)— The New Orpheus to hisEurydice. Why wilt thou woo,ah, strange Eurydice, p.48And life is like the blossom on the tree, “Go back, and seek the sunlight,”as of old, Whenfirst we heard Rossetti sing, To breakfast,dinner, or to lunch “The better half”—how goodthe sound! The cakes and ham and buttered toast What cups of tea were ever brewed Prince, you are young—but you willfind Had cigarettes noashes, Had cigarettes no ashes, p.52But ’tis an unideal, (Matrimony—Advertiser would like to hear fromwell-educated Protestant lady, under thirty, fair, with view toabove, who would have no objection to work Remington type-writer,at home. Enclose photo. T. 99. ThisOffice. Cork newspaper.) T. 99 would gladly hear If she have no objections to InMemory of Thomas Tod Stoddart. An angler to anangler here, His boyhood found the waters clean, The Angler hath ajolly life The miller turns the water off, Or, if he mark a rising trout, “I’m ofmy game,” the golfer said, “Oh, would that such mishaps mightfall “Why is it that I play at all? “I hate the sight of all my set, Oh blessed be thecart that takes Blessed the purchasers who pay For I am weary of the sport, Weary of crests and coats of arms, p.61I never read the catalogues Large paper surely cannot hide Ye bores, of every shape and size, * * * Thus in a sullen fit we swore, Who suddenly callsto our ken He’s the ally of Medicine Men It is he, from his cerebral den, Prince, each of us all is a pair— Heed not the folkwho sing or say What though we wish the cats at play And, sometimes on a summer’s day Pistol, with oaths didst thou fulfil (The ruined Gold Cities ofRhodesia. The Ophir of Scripture.) Into the darknesswhence they came, Hence came the altar all of gold, p.67The pestilence, the desert spear, [The author (if he can be so styled) awoke from a restlesssleep, with the first stanza of the following piece in hismind. He has no memory of composing it, either awake orasleep. He had long known the perhaps Pythagorean fable ofthe bean-juice, but certainly never thought of applying it to anamorous correspondence! The remaining verses are thecontribution of his Conscious Self!] Elle. I cannot write, Imay not write, Lui. Oh, I had written this many a year, Elle. “Oh, every thought that your heart hasthought, We spoke of a restin a fairy knowe of the North, but he, Tusitala, the lover of children, the teller oftales, p.71Winds of the West and the East in the rainy seasonblow Once we were kindest, he said, when leagues ofthe limitless sea There is no venom inthe Rose Nature herself to deadly flowers Like Progne didst thou lose thy tongue, Were an apple tree apine, Had the Amazonian Queen As Penthesilea brave By R.B. What if we call itfifty years! ’Tis steep! Poscimur! By A.D. A Birthday Odefor Meg or Nan, He therefore turns, the Poetwary, By M.A. Yes, in the streamand stress of things, Ah, Fifty harvests! But the corn Ah, such is Life, to us that live By A. C.S. Me, that have sungand shrieked, and foamed in praise of Freedom, * * * * Nay, by the foam that fleeting oars havefeathered, For you the laurel smirched, for you the gold,too, p.83For you the gleam of gain, the fluttering cheque When aflush with the dew of the dawn, andthe By W.M. “Tell me, OMuse of the Shifty, the Man who wandered afar,” I. Oh, fair apple tree,and oh, fair apple tree, II. I send my love letters Without reading or writing, p. 90III. And if they ask for me, brother, The green grass is my bridal bed, The King hasgi’en the Queen a gift, The Queen she walked in Falklandyaird, His coat was the Ruthven white and red, “Oh! wha sleeps here, May Beatrix, p.94“My father was the Earl Gowrie, “At Paduahae they learned theirleir * * * The Queen has cuist her siller band The King he daundered thro’ the yaird, The King has gane till the Queen’s ainbower, And she’s run in by the dern blackyett, p.95The Queen has linked her siller band “Oh! whare,” he cried, “isthe siller band “Ye hae camped birling at the wine, The King he stude, the King he glowered, “I saw it round young Ruthven’sneck * * * There was na gane a week, a week, p.96They took him in his brother’s house, And they hae slain his fair brother, Oh! had they set him man to man, A Ballad of theSound of Mull. 1588. The Queen o’Spain had an ill gude-man. She’s kaimit out her lang black hair, Then first she saw her ain fair face, p.98But last she saw the bonniest man “Oh! the Spanish men are unco black “Oh! where shall Ifind sic aman? And she’s sailed west and she’ssailed east, And she’s sailed east and she’ssailed west, And there she spied a bonny bay, p.99Says “Welcome here, ye bonny maid, “I am na the Lady o’ fairElfland, “Then it’s a’ for the aefoldlove o’ thee “Ye maun cast her into a massymore, Oh! they twa sat, and they twa grat, His wife was a Campbell, fair and fause, p.100“Oh! we maun send the Queen a stag, She has put a bomb in the clairet butt, * * * The morn McLean rade forth to see But there cam’ a crash like athunder-clap, McLean he speirit nor gude nor bad, O Keith o’Craigentolly! In the bower o’ Craigentolly O Keith o’ Craigentolly, p. 102PRINTEDBY [11] One verse and the refrain are of1750 or thereabouts. At Laffen, where William, Duke ofCumberland, was defeated and nearly captured by the Scots andIrish in the French service, Prince Charles is said to haveserved as a volunteer. [32] So Nyren tells us.NEW COLLECTED
RHYMES
ANDREW LANG
39 PATERNOSTER ROW, LONDON
NEW YORK AND BOMBAYp.vPREFACE
These names of Prince, and rose, and King;
Types of things dear that do not die,
But reign in loyal memory.
Across the watersurely they
Abide their twenty-ninth of May;
And we shall hail their happy reign,
When Life comes to his own again,”—p.viiCONTENTS
p.1DEDICATORY
p. 3InAugustinum Dobson.
(Like him who reigned inBabylon),
Forget the seasons overlaid
By business and the Board of Trade:
And sing of old-world lad and lass
As in the summers that aregone.
When you ambassador had been,
And brought o’er sea the King again,
Beatrix Esmond in his train,
Ah, happy bard to hold her fan,
And happy land with such aQueen!
You should have shared the pint ofPope,
And taught, well pleased, the shining shell
To murmur of the fair Lepel,
And changed the stars of St. John’s fate
To some more happy horoscope.
And fed with chicken andchampagne,
Urbane and witty, and too wary
To risk the feud of Lady Mary,
You should have walked the courtly ground
Of times that cannot comeagain.
(I very much prefer yourverse!)
As on some Twenty-Ninth of May
Restore the splendour and the sway,
Forget the sins, the wars, the woes—
The joys alone must yourehearse.
So stupid as to snarl atyou);
So may your years with pen and book
Run pleasant as an English brook
Through meadows floral in the sun,
And shadows fragrant of thedew.
As all must end—the worldshall say,
“His best he gave: he left us not
A line that saints could wish to blot,
For he was blameless, though a man,
And though the poet, he wasgay!”p. 5LOYALLYRICS
p. 7Howthe Maid Marched from Blois.
But he lashed like a fiend when the Maid drew near:
“Lead him forth to the Cross!” she cried, and hestood
Like a steed of bronze by the Holy Rood!
With a good steel sperthe that swung by her side,
And girt with the sword of the Heavenly Bride,
That is sained with crosses five for a sign,
The mystical sword of St. Catherine.
And the lily banner was blowing wide,
With the flowers of France on the field of fame
And, blent with the blossoms, the Holy Name!
And the Maiden’s blazon was shown on a shield,
Argent, a dove, on an azure field;
That banner was wrought by this hand, ye see,
For the love of the Maid and chivalry.
With hair of gold, and a lady’s face;
And behind it the ranks of her men were dressed—
Never a man but was clean confessed,
Jackman and archer, lord and knight,
Their souls were clean and their hearts were light:
There was never an oath, there was never a laugh,
And La Hire swore soft by his leading staff!
Had we died in that hour we had won the skies,
And the Maiden had marched us through Paradise!
Who had come to gaze on the Maiden fair;
A moment she glanced at the ring she wore,
She murmured the Holy Name it bore,
Then, “For France and the King, good people pray!”
She spoke, and she cried to us, “On andaway!”
And the shouts broke forth, and the flowers rained down,
And the Maiden led us to Orleans town.p. 9LonePlaces of the Deer.
Corrie, and Loch, and Ben,
Fount that wells in the cave,
Voice of the burn and the wave,
Softly you sing and clear
Of Charlie and his men!
The heather has been his bed,
The wastes of the islands knew
And the Highland hearts were true
To the bonny, the brave, the dear,
The royal, the hunted head.p. 10AnOld Song.
And it’s hame I wadna be,
Till the Lord calls King James
To his ain countrie,
Bids the wind blaw frae France,
Till the Firth keps the faem,
And Loch Garry and Lochiel
Bring Prince Charlie hame.
That were hard on Willie’s track,
When frae Laffen field he fled,
Wi’ the claymore at his back,
May they stand on Scottish soil
When the White Rose bears the gree,
And the Lord calls the King
To his ain countrie!
Like walls on ilka side,
p. 11Till ourHighland lad pass through
With Jehovah for his guide.
Dry up the River Forth,
As Thou didst the Red Sea,
When Israel cam hame
To his ain countrie. [11]p.12Jacobite“Auld LangSyne.”
And drink King Lewie’s wine,
We’ll bring the King frae ower the sea,
As in auld lang syne.
And save auld Jacob’s line,
Will speak to Charlie in the Bush,
Like Moses, lang syne.
Frae Garry to the Rhine,
Frae Baugé brig to Falkirk moor,
No that lang syne.
And wi’ the deil may dine,
But Charlie’s dine in Holyrood,
As in auld lang syne.
To save auld Jacob’s line,
Shall speak to Charlie in the Bush,
Like Moses, lang syne.p. 14ThePrince’s Birthday.
From the frozen skies of theNorth
Upon Rome, for an Old Year’s night:
And a flower on the dear whiteRose
Broke, in the season of snows,
To bloom for a day’s delight.
And the Rose of a day’sdelight
Fled “where the roses go”:
But the fragrance and light fromafar,
Born of the Rose and the Star,
Breathe o’er the years and the snow.p. 15TheTenth of June, 1715.
And the girl of my heart’s delight,
The blackbird sings in the bower,
And the nightingale sings in the night
A song to the roses white.
When shall the sails of white
Shine on the seas and bring
In the day, in the dawn, in the night,
The King to his land and his right?
After the long years’ flight,
Born on the King’s birthday,
Born for my heart’s delight,
With the dawn of the roses white!
Is her hair, and her brow as white
As the white rose blossoming,
And her eyes as the falcon’s bright
And her heart is leal to the right.
When shall the hours unite
The right with the might of my King,
And my heart with my heart’s delight;
In the dawn, in the day, in the night?p.17White Rose Day.
Of honour that could not die,
Of Hope that counted the hours,
Of sorrowing Loyalty:
And the Blackbirdsang in the closes,
The Blackbirdpiped in the spring,
For the day of the dawn of the Roses,
The dawn of the day of the King!
And down by the Lowland lea,
And far in the faint blue weather,
A white sail guessed on the sea!
But the deep night gathers and closes,
Shall ever a morning bring
The lord of the leal white roses,
The face of the rightful King?p. 18Redand White Roses.
For the King who is lord of land;
But he dies when his day is done,
For his memory careth none
When the glass runs empty of sand.
For the King without lands to give;
But he reigns with the reign of June,
With the rose and the Blackbird’s tune,
And he lives while Faith shall live.
Red roses for wine and gold;
But they drank of the water clear,
In exile and sorry cheer,
To the kings of our sires of old.
White roses for hopes that flee;
And the dreams of the day and the night,
For the Lord of our heart’s delight—
For the King that is o’er the sea.p. 19TheBonnie Banks o’ Loch Lomond.
And the Clans they hae paid the lawing,
And the wuddy has her ain, and we twa are left alane,
Free o’ Carlisle gaol in the dawing.
An’ I’ll be inScotland before ye:
But me and my true love will nevermeet again,
By the bonnie, bonnie bankso’ Loch Lomond.
And she sleeps where there’s never nane shall waken,
Where the glen lies a’ in wrack, wi’ the houses toomand black,
And her father’s ha’s forsaken.
While a bush hides the glint o’ a gun, lad;
Wi’ the men o’ Sergeant Môr shall I work to paythe score,
Till I wither on the wuddy in the sun, lad!
An’ I’ll be inScotland before ye:
But me and my true love will nevermeet again,
By the bonnie, bonnie bankso’ Loch Lomond.p.21Kenmure.
The White Rose decks the tree,
The Fiery Cross is on the braes,
And the King is on the sea!
Remember fair Dundee,
And strike one stroke at the foreign foes
Of the King that’s on the sea.
Are rising frank and free,
Shall a Kenmure Gordon not go forth
For the King that’s on the sea?
A comely weird to dree,
For the Royal Rose that’s like the snaw,
And the King that’s on the sea!”
Looked over loch and lea,
He took his fortune in his hands,
For the King was on the sea.
For Kirk and Presbyt’rie,
This Kenmure faced his dying day,
For King James across the sea.
If loyal men they be
To Christ’s ain Kirk and Covenant,
Or the King that’s o’er the sea.p.23Culloden.
And chill was the mist drop that clung to thetree,
The oats of the harvest hung heavy and sodden,
No light on the land and no wind on the sea.
When the clans broke the bayonets and died on theguns,
And ’tis Honour that watches the desolate places
Where they sleep through the change of the snows andthe suns.
All hopeless and fearless, as fiercely theyfought,
As when Falkirk with heaps of the fallen was cumbered,
As when Gledsmuir was red with the havoc theywrought.
Ah, woe worth you, Lovat,Traquair, and Mackay;
And woe on the false fairy flag of Macleod,
And the fat squires who drank, but whodared not to die!
Where Macgillavray died by the Well of the Dead,
We stooped to the moorland and plucked the pale heather
That blooms where the hope of the Stuart wassped.
Like the voice of the heroes who battled in vain,
“Not for Tearlach alone the red claymore was plying,
But to bring back the old life that comes notagain.”p. 25TheLast of the Leal.
Bore the brunt of wind and weather;
Winnowed sore by Fortune’s fan,
Faded faith of chief and clan:
Nairne and Caryl stand together;
Here’s a health to every man
Bore the brunt of wind and weather!
When his foot was on the heather,
When his sword shone in the van.
Now at ending of his span,
Gask and Caryl stand together!
Ne’er a hope from rose or heather;
Ay, the King’s a broken man;
Few will bless, and most will ban.
Nairne and Caryl stand together!
France is false, a fluttered feather;
But Kings are not made by man,
Till God end what God began,
Nairne and Caryl stand together,
Gask and Caryl stand together;
Here’s a health to every man
Bore the brunt of wind and weather!p.27Jeanne d’Arc.
The courage of a paladin,
With maiden’s mirth, the soul of joy,
These dwelt her happy breast within.
From shame, from doubt, from fear, from sin,
As God’s own angels was she free;
Old worlds shall end, and new begin
To be
For France, for freedom, for the King;
Who counsel of redemption brought
Whence even the armed Archangel’s wing
Might weary sore in voyaging;
Who heard her Voices cry “Be free!”
Such Maid no later human spring
Shall see!
Who sowed the seed that Thou must reap,
If eyes of angels may be wet,
And if the Saints have leave to weep,
In Paradise one pain they keep,
Maiden! one mortal memory,
One sorrow that can never sleep,
For Thee!p.29CRICKET RHYMES
p. 31ToHelen.
Like that wise Alfred Shaw’s of yore,
Which gently broke the wickets three:
From Alfred few could smack a four:
Most difficult to score!
The rattle of the flying bails,
The grey sad spires, the tawny sails—
What memories they bring to me,
Beholding thee!
How sportsmanlike I see thee stand!
The leather in thy lily hand,
Oh, Helen of the yorkers, which
Are nobly planned!p.32Ballade of Dead Cricketers.
Barker, and Hogsflesh, where be they?
Brett, of all bowlers fleetest yet
That drove the bails in disarray?
And Small that would, like Orpheus, play
Till wild bulls followed his minstrelsy? [32]
Booker, and Quiddington, and May?
Beneath the daisies, there they lie!
The stumps with balls that broke astray?
And Mann, whose balls would ricochet
In almost an unholy way
(So do baseballers “pitch” to-day)
George Lear, that seldom let a bye,
And Richard Nyren, grave and gray?
Beneath the daisies, there they lie!
Brown that would bravest hearts affray;
Walker, invincible when set,
(Tom, of the spider limbs and splay);
Think ye that we could match them, pray,
These heroes of Broad-halfpenny,
With Buck to hit, and Small to stay?
Beneath the daisies, there they lie!
How all things change below the sky!
Of Fry and Grace shall mortals say,
“Beneath the daisies, there theylie!”p.34Brahma.
Or if the batsman thinks he’s bowled,
They know not, poor misguided souls,
They too shall perish unconsoled.
Iam the batsman and the bat,
Iam the bowler and the ball,
The umpire, the pavilion cat,
The roller, pitch, and stumps, and all.p.35CRITICAL OF LIFE, ART, AND LITERATURE
p.37Gainsborough Ghosts.
The lips that laughed an age agone,
The fops, the dukes, the beauties all,
Le Brun that sang, and Carr that shone.
We gaze with idle eyes: we con
The faces of an elder time—
Alas! and oursis flitting on;
Oh, moral for an empty rhyme!
Have left the solemn rooms and chill,
When dilettanti are not loud,
When lady critics are not shrill—
Ah, think how strange upon the still
Dim air may sound these voices faint;
Once more may Johnson talk his fill
And fair Dalrymple charm the Saint!
Like us, perchance, they criticise:
Our wit, they vote, is Brummagem;
Our beauty—dim to Devon’s eyes!
Their silks and lace our cloth despise,
Their pumps—our boots that pad the mud,
What modern fop with Walpole vies?
With St. Leger what modern blood?
Our very greatest, sure, are small;
And Mr. Gladstone is not Pitt,
And Garrick comes not when we call.
Yet—pass an age—and, after all,
Even wemay please the folk that look
When we are faces on the wall,
And voices in a history book!
With collars keen, with Roman nose;
To Beauty yet shall Millais give
The roses that outlast the rose:
The lords of verse, the slaves of prose,
On canvas yet shall seem alive,
And charm the mob that comes and goes,
And lives—in 1985.p. 39ARemonstrance with the Fair.
The mind of the animal male;
But woman abundantly hath ’em,
And mostly her notions prevail.
And why ladies read what they doread
Is a thing that no man may explain,
And if any one asks for a true rede
He asketh in vain.
Of stories that gloomily bore
Received as the subtle expression
Of almost unspeakable lore?
In the dreary, the sickly, the grimy
Say, why do our women delight,
And wherefore so constantly ply me
With Ships in the Night?
With books to your taste in your hands;
For, alas! though you offer to coach us,
Yet the soul of no man understands
Why the grubby is always the moral,
Why the nasty’s preferred to the nice,
While you keep up a secular quarrel
With a gay little Vice;
A Vice with a rose in her hair,
You condemn in the present and after,
To darkness of utter despair:
But a sin, if no rapture redeem it,
But a passion that’s pale and played out,
Or in surgical hands—you esteem it
Worth scribbling about!
Is sauce, ye inconsequent fair!
It is better to laugh than to maunder,
And better is mirth than despair;
And though Life’s not all beer and all skittles,
Yet the Sun, on occasion, can shine,
And, mon Dieu! he’s a fool who belittles
This cosmos of Thine!
Shall be hot in the mouth, as of old:
And a villain, with cloak and with whinger,
And a hero, in armour of gold,
p. 41And a maidwith a face like a lily,
With a heart that is stainless and gay,
Make a tale worth a world of the silly
Sad trash of to-day!p.42Rhyme of Rhymes.
Repeats its old refrain,
Like ghosts of mortals who have sinned,
And fain would sin again.
Like many mortal men,
“Again” (when one reflects) ’twere kind
To rhyme as if “agen.”
Who spokeof “wind” as“wined,”
And yet we use it, on the whole,
To rhyme to “find” and“blind.”
When people give us pain;
In poetry, nine times in ten,
It rhymes to “Spain” or“Dane.”
Oh, which are right or wrong?
The sounds in prose familiar, quite,
Or those we meet in song?
Requires some force of will,
Yet in the ancient lyric groove
We meet them rhyming still.
In prehistoric times,
We follow it, or if we don’t,
We oft run short of rhymes.p.44Rhyme of Oxford Cockney Rhymes.
And Morris “dawn” to“morn,”
A worse example, it is clear,
By Oxford Dons is “shorn.”
G—y, of Magdalen, goes beyond
These puny Cockneys far,
And to “Magrath” rhymes—Muse despond!—
“Magrath” he rhymes to“star”!
Employs the word “researcher,”
And then,—his blood be on his head,—
He makes it rhyme to “nurture.”
Ah, never was the English tongue
So flayed, and racked, and tortured,
Since one I love (who should be hung)
Made “tortured” rhyme to“orchard.”
Next craves a rhyme to “sooner;”
Rejecting “Spooner,” (best of men,)
He fastens on lacuna(r).
Nay, worse, in his infatuate mind
He ends a line “explainer,”
Nor any rhyme can G—y find
Until he reaches Jena(r).
He needs to rhyme “embargo;”
The man had “Margot” at his call,
He had the good ship Argo;
Largo he had; yet doth he seek
Further, and no embargo
Restrains him from the odious, weak,
And Cockney rhyme, “Chicago”!
Among your gardens tidy,
If you would ask a maid to tea,
D’ye call the girl “a lydy”?
And if you’d sing of Mr. Fry,
And need a rhyme to “swiper,”
Are you so cruel as to try
To fill the blank with “paper”?
To many a poet dear,
And Saccharissa had the grice
In Hoxford to appear.
But Waller, if to Cytherea
He prayed at any time,
Did not implore “her friendly ear,”
And think he had a rhyme.
The horrors which I mention,
I think we owe them to the U-
Niversity extension.
From Hoxton and from Poplar come
The ’Arriets and ’Arries,
And so the Oxford Muse is dumb,
Or, when she sings, miscarries.p.47Rococo.
We twanged the melancholy lyre,
We sang like this, like anything,
When first we heard Rossetti sing.
And all our song was faded Spring,
And dead delight and dark desire,
When first we heard Rossetti sing,
We twanged the melancholy lyre.
A languid laurell’d Orpheus in the shades,
For here is company of shadowy maids,
Hero, and Helen and Psamathoë:
And never tumult of the world invades,
The low light wanes and waxes, flowers and fades,
And sleep is sweet, and dreams suffice for me;
The wise ghost-mother of Odysseus said,
Here am I half content, and scarce a-cold,
But one light fits the living, one the dead;
Good-bye, be glad, forget! thou canst not hold
In thy kind arms, alas! this powerless head.
We also wrote this kind of thing!p. 49TheFood of Fiction.
My steps are languid, once so speedy;
E’en though, like the old gent in Punch,
“Not hungry, but, thank goodness!greedy.”
I gaze upon the well-spread board,
And have to own—oh, contradiction!
Though every dainty it afford,
There’s nothing like the food of fiction.
Of Scott’s or Ainsworth’s “venisonpasty,”
In cups of old Canary drowned,
(Which probably was very nasty).
The beefsteak pudding made by Ruth
To cheer Tom Pinch in his affliction,
Ah me, in all the world of truth,
There’s nothing like the food of fiction!
That graced the board of Gabriel Varden,
In Bracebridge Hall the Christmas roast,
Fruits from the Goblin Market Garden.
p. 50And ifyou’d eat of luscious sweets
And yet escape from gout’s infliction,
Just read “St. Agnes’ Eve” by Keats—
There’s nothing like the food of fiction.
Like Sairey Gamp’s—the dear oldsinner?
What savoury mess was ever stewed
Like that for Short’s and Codlin’sdinner?
What was the flavour of that “poy”—
To use the Fotheringay’s own diction—
Pendennis ate, the love-sick boy?
There’s nothing like the food of fiction.
After life’s years of fret and friction,
That hunger wanes—but never mind!
There’s nothing like the food of fiction.p.51“A Highly Valuable chain ofThoughts.”
And roses ne’er a thorn,
No man would be a funker
Of whin, or burn, or bunker.
There were no need for mashies,
The turf would ne’er be torn,
Had cigarettes no ashes,
And roses ne’er a thorn.
And roses ne’er a thorn,
The big trout would not ever
Escape into the river.
No gut the salmon smashes
Would leave us all forlorn,
Had cigarettes no ashes,
And roses ne’er a thorn.
Sad world in which we’re born,
And things will “go contrairy”
With Martin and with Mary:
And every day the real
Comes bleakly in with morn,
And cigarettes have ashes,
And every rose a thorn.p.53Matrimony.
From one whose years are few,
A maid whose doctrines are severe,
Of Presbyterian blue,
Also—with view to the above—
Her photo he would see,
And trusts that she may live and love
His Protestant to be!
But ere the sacred rites are done
(And by no Priest of Rome)
He’d ask, if she a Remington
Type-writer works—at home?
This task, and if her hair—
In keeping with her eyes of blue—
Be delicately fair,
p. 54Ah,then, let her a photo send
Of all her charms divine,
To him who rests her faithful friend,
Her own T. 99.p.55Piscatori Piscator.
To one who longed not for the bays,
I bring a little gift and dear,
A line of love, a word of praise,
A common memory of the ways,
By Elibank and Yair that lead;
Of all the burns, from all the braes,
That yield their tribute to the Tweed.
His age deplored them, foul with dye;
But purple hills, and copses green,
And these old towers he wandered by,
Still to the simple strains reply
Of his pure unrepining reed,
Who lies where he was fain to lie,
Like Scott, within the sound of Tweed.p. 56TheContented Angler.
Who by the rail runs down,
And leaves his business and his wife,
And all the din of town.
The wind down stream is blowing straight,
And nowhere cast can he:
Then lo, he doth but sit and wait
In kindly company.
Or folk be cutting weed,
While he doth at misfortune scoff,
From every trouble freed.
Or else he waiteth for a rise,
And ne’er a rise may see;
For why, there are not any flies
To bear him company.
He straightway is caught up,
p. 57And thenhe takes his flasket out,
And drinks a rousing cup.
Or if a trout he chance to hook,
Weeded and broke is he,
And then he finds a godly book
Instructive company.p. 58OffMy Game.
And shook his locks in woe;
“My putter never lays me dead,
My drives will never go;
Howe’er I swing, howe’er I stand,
Results are still the same,
I’m in the burn, I’m in the sand—
I’m off my game!
On Laidlay or Macfie,
That they might toe or heel the ball,
And sclaff along like me!
Men hurry from me in the street,
And execrate my name,
Old partners shun me when we meet—
I’m off my game!
Let memory remind me
How once I smote upon my ball,
And bunkered it—behind me.
p. 59I mostlyslice into the whins,
And my excuse is lame—
It cannot cover half my sins—
I’m off my game!
I grow morose as Byron;
I never loved a brassey yet,
And now I hate an iron.
My cleek seems merely made to top,
My putting’s wild or tame;
It’s really time for me to stop—
I’m off my game!”p. 60TheProperty of a Gentleman who has given up Collecting.
Away my books, my curse, my clog,
Blessed the auctioneer who makes
Their inefficient catalogue.
However little—less were fit—
Blessed the rooms, the rainy day,
The knock-out and the end of it.
That seemed a while agone so sweet,
Of Elzevirs an inch too short,
And First Editions—incomplete.
“Attributed to Padeloup”
The sham Deromes have lost their charms,
The things Le Gascon did not do.
Of rubbish that come thick as rooks,
But most I loathe the dreary dogs
That write in prose, or worse, on books.
Their grammar, nor excuse their rhyme,
The anecdotes that they provide
Are older than the dawn of time.
Who make a tedium of delight,
Good-bye, the last of my good-byes.
Good night, to all your clan good night!
But on mature reflection,
Went on collecting more and more,
And kept our old collection!p. 62TheBallade of the Subconscious Self.
The knowledge that should not be there;
Who charms Mr. Stead with the pen,
Of the Prince of the Powers of the Air;
Who makes Physiologists stare—
Is he ghost, is he demon, or elf,
Who fashions the dream of the fair?
It is just the Subconscious Self.
Who consult the Australian bear,
And ’tis he, with his lights on the fen,
Who helps Jack o’ Lanthorn to snare
The peasants of Devon, who swear
Under Commonwealth, Stuart, or Guelph,
That they never had half such a scare—
It is just the Subconscious Self.
Who raps upon table and chair,
Who frightens the housemaid, and then
Slinks back, like a thief, to his lair:
p. 63’Tisthe Brownie (according to Mair)
Who rattles the pots on the shelf,
But the Psychical sages declare
“It is just the Subconscious Self.”
The Conscious, who labours for pelf,
And the other, who charmed Mr. Blair,
It is just the Subconscious Self.p.64Ballade of the Optimist.
In sonnet sad or sermon chill,
“Alas, alack, and well-a-day,
This round world’s but a bitterpill.”
Poor porcupines of fretful quill!
Sometimes we quarrel with our lot:
We, too, are sad and careful; still
We’d rather be alive than not.
Would some one else’s garden till;
Though Sophonisba drop the tray
And all our worshipped Worcester spill,
Though neighbours “practise” loud and shrill,
Though May be cold and June be hot,
Though April freeze and August grill,
We’d rather be alive than not.
To self and every mortal ill
We give the slip, we steal away,
To walk beside some sedgy rill:
p. 65Thedarkening years, the cares that kill,
A little while are well forgot;
When deep in broom upon the hill,
We’d rather be alive than not.
The task thy braggart tongue begot,
We eat our leek with better will,
We’d rather be alive than not.p.66Zimbabwe.
They passed, their country knoweth none,
They and their gods without a name
Partake the same oblivion.
Their work they did, their work is done,
Whose gold, it may be, shone like fire
About the brows of Solomon,
And in the House of God’s Desire.
The hinges of the Holy Place,
The censer with the fragrance rolled
Skyward to seek Jehovah’s face;
The golden Ark that did encase
The Law within Jerusalem,
The lilies and the rings to grace
The High Priest’s robe and diadem.
Smote them; they passed, with none to tell
The names of them who laboured here:
Stark walls and crumbling crucible,
Strait gates, and graves, and ruined well,
Abide, dumb monuments of old,
We know but that men fought and fell,
Like us, like us, for love of Gold.p.68Love’s Cryptogram.
I dare not write to thee,
But look on the face of the moon by night,
And my letters shalt thou see.
For every letter that lovers write,
By their loves on the moon is seen,
If they pen their thought on the paper white,
With the magic juice of the bean!
And my letters you had read.
Had you only told me the spell, my dear,
Ere ever we twain were wed!
p. 69But I havea lady and you have a lord,
And their eyes are of the green,
And we dared not trust to the written word,
Lest our long, long love be seen!
Since the world came us between,
The birds of the air to my heart have brought,
With no word heard or seen.”
’Twas thus in a dream we spoke and said
Myself and my love unseen,
But I woke and sighed on my weary bed,
For the spell of the juice of the bean!p.70Tusitala.
Far from the firths of the East, and the racingtides of the West,
Sleeps in the sight and the sound of the infinite SouthernSea,
Weary and well content in his grave on the Vaëacrest.
Giver of counsel and dreams, a wonder, aworld’s delight,
Looks o’er the labours of men in the plain and the hill;and the sails
Pass and repass on the sea that he loved, in the dayand the night.
Heavy with perfume, and all his fragrant woods arewet,
Winds of the East and West as they wander to and fro,
Bear him the love of the land he loved, and the longregret.
Flowed between us, but now that no wash of thewandering tides
Sunders us each from each, yet nearer we seem to be,
Whom only the unbridged stream of the river of Deathdivides.p.72Disdainful Diaphenia.
That any bee should shrink from it;
No poison from the Lily flows,
She hath not a disdainful wit;
But thou, that Rose and Lily art,
Thy tongue doth poison Cupid’s dart!
Refuseth beauty lest the vain
Insects that hum through August hours
With beauty should suck in their bane;
But thou, as Rose or Lily fair,
Art circled with envenomed air!
Thy lovers might adore and live;
Like that witch Circe, oft besung,
Thou hast dear gifts, if thou wouldst give;
But since thou hast a wicked wit,
Thy lovers fade, or flee from it.p.73Tall Salmacis.
Tall and slim, and softly swaying,
Then her beauty were like thine,
Salmacis, when boune a Maying,
Tall as any poplar tree,
Sweet as apple blossoms be!
Seen thee ’midst thy maiden peers,
Thou the Coronel hadst been
Of that lady’s Grenadiers;
Troy had never mourned her fall,
With thine axe to guard her wall.
Is the maiden (in her dreams);
Ilium she well might save,
Though Achilles’ armour gleams,
’Midst the Greeks; all vain it is,
’Gainst the glance of Salmacis!p.75JUBILEE POEMS
BY BARDS WHO WERE SILENTp.77What Francesco said of the Jubilee.
To climb so high a gradient? Prate of Guides?
Are we not roped? The Danger? Nay, the Turf,
No less nor more than mountain peaks, my friend,
Hears talk of Roping,—but the Jubilee!
Nay, there you have me: old Francesco once
(This was in Milan, in Visconti’s time,
Our wild Visconti, with one lip askance,
And beard tongue-twisted in the nostril’s nook)
Parlous enough,—these times—what? “So areours”?
Or any times, i’fegs, to him who thinks,—
Well ’twas in Spring “the frolic myrtle trees
There gendered the grave olive stocks,”—you cry
“A miracle!”—Sordello writeth thus,—
Believe me that indeed ’twas thus, and he,
Francesco, you are with me? Well, there’s gloom
p. 78No lessthan gladness in your fifty years,
“And so,” said he, “to supper as wemay.”
“Voltairean?” So you take it; but ’tislate,
And dinner seven, sharp, at Primrose Hill.p. 79ThePoet and the Jubilee.
A Rhyme for Lady Flora’s Fan,
A Verse on Smut, who’s gone astray,
These Things are in the Poet’sway;
At Home with praise of Julia’sLace,
Or Delia’s Ankles, Rose’s Face,
But “Something overparted” He,
When asked to rhyme the jubilee!
And Thumbs his Carmen Seculare,
To Phœbus and to Dian prays,
Who tune Men’s Lyres of Holidays,
He reads of the SibyllineShades,
Of Stainless Boys and chosen Maids.
He turns, and reads the other Page,
Of docile Youth, and placid Age,
p. 80Then Singshow, in this golden Year
Fides Pudorquereappear,—
And if they don’t appear, you know it
Were quite unjust to blame the Poet!p. 81Onany Beach.
That breaks around us like the sea,
There comes to Peasants and to Kings,
The solemn Hour of Jubilee.
If they, till strenuous Naturegive
Some fifty harvests, chance tolive!
Is grown beside the barren main,
Is salt with sea-spray, blown and borne
Across the green unvintaged plain.
And life, lived out for fiftyyears,
Is briny with the spray oftears!
Here, in the twilight of the Gods,
Who weigh each gift the world can give,
And sigh and murmur, What’s the odds
So long’s you’rehappy? Nay, what Man
Finds Happiness since Timebegan?p. 82Odeof Jubilee.
Medo youask to sing
Parochial pomps, and waste, the wail of Jubileedom
For Queen, orPrince, or King!
In Grecianseas;
Nay, by the winds that barques Athenian weathered—
By all ofthese
I bid you each be mute, Bards tamed and tethered,
And fee’dwith fees!
Of Magazines;
For me the Spirit of Song, unbought, unsold to
Pale Priests orQueens!
Of Mr.Knowles,
For me, to soar above the ruins and wreck
Of Snobs and“Souls”!
Rose of theMystical Vision,
The spirit and soul of the Men of the
Future shallrise and be free,
They shall hail me with hymning and harping,
With eloquentArt and Elysian,—
The Singer who sung not but spurned them,
The slaves thatcould sing “Jubilee;”
With pinchbeck lyre and tongue,
Praising their tyrant sung,
They shall fail and shall fade in derision,
As wind on theways of the sea!p.84Jubilee Before Revolution.
So have I chanted of late, and of Troy burg wasted ofwar—
Now of the sorrows of Menfolk that fifty years have been,
Now of the Grace of the Commune I sing, and the days of aQueen!
Surely I curse rich Menfolk, “the Wights of theWhirlwind” may they—
This is my style of translating‘Αρπυίαι,—snatchthem away!
The Rich Thieves rolling in wealth that make profit of labouringmen,
Surely the Wights of the Whirlwind shall swallow them quick intheir den!
O baneful, O wit-straying, in the Burg of London ye dwell,
p. 85And everof Profits and three per cent. are the tales ye tell,
But the stark, strong Polyphemus shall answer you back again,
Him whom “No man slayeth by guile and not bymain.”
(By “main” I mean “main force,” if aughtat all do I mean.
In the Greek of the blindfold Bard it is simpler the sense toglean.)
You Polyphemus shall swallow and fill his mighty maw,
What time he maketh an end of the Priests, the Police, and theLaw,
And then, ah, who shall purchase the poems of old that I sang,
Who shall pay twelve-and-six for an epic in Saga slang?
But perchance even “Hermes the Flitter” couldscarcely expound what I mean,
And I trow that another were fitter to sing you a song for aQueen.p. 87FOLKSONGS
p.89French Peasant Songs.
As heavy and sweet as the blossoms on thee,
My heart is heavy with love.
It wanteth but a little wind
To make the blossoms fall;
It wanteth but a young lover
To win me heart and all.
By larks on the wing;
My love sends me letters
When nightingales sing.
Their burden we know:
They only say, “Love me,
Who love you so.”
Say I come never home,
For I have taken a strange wife
Beyond the salt sea foam.
The black tomb my good mother,
The stones and dust within the grave
Are my sister and my brother.p.91BALLADS
p. 93TheYoung Ruthven.
For her May-day’s propine,
He’s gi’en her a band o’ the diamond-stane,
Set in the siller fine.
Beside the Hollans green,
And there she saw the bonniest man
That ever her eyes had seen.
Sae sound asleep was he
The Queen she cried on May Beatrix,
That seely lad to see.
Without the leave o’ me?”
“Oh! wha suld it be but my young brother
Frae Paduaower the sea!
An Earl o’ high degree,
But they hae slain him by fause treason,
And gar’d my brothers flee.
In the fields o’ Italie;
And they hae crossed the saut sea-faem,
And a’ for love o’ me!”
About his craig o’ snaw;
But still he slept and naething kenned,
Aneth the Hollans shaw.
He saw the siller shine;
“And wha,” quoth he, “is this galliard
That wears yon gift o’ mine?”
An angry man that day;
But bye there cam’ May Beatrix
And stole the band away.
Straight till the Queen ran she:
“Oh! tak ye back your siller band,
Or it gar my brother dee!”
About her middle sma’;
And then she heard her ain gudeman
Come rowting through the ha’.
I gied ye late yestreen?
The knops was a’ o’ the diamond stane,
Set in the siller sheen.”
A’ nicht till the day did daw;
Or ye wad ken your siller band
About my middle sma’!”
Sae hard as a man micht stare.
“Deil hae me! Like is a richt ill mark,—
Or I saw it itherwhere!
As he lay sleeping still;
And, faith, but the wine was wondrous guid,
Or my wife is wondrous ill!”
A week but barely three;
The King has hounded John Ramsay out,
To gar young Ruthven dee!
Nae sword was in his hand,
And they hae slain him, young Ruthven,
The bonniest in the land!
And laid him on the green,
And a’ for a band o’ the siller fine
And a blink o’ the eye o’ the Queen!
Or even ae man to three,
There was na a knight o’ the Ramsay bluid
Had gar’d Earl Gowrie dee!p. 97TheQueen O’ Spain and the Bauld Mclean.
The carle was auld and grey.
She has keeked in the glass at Hallow-een
A better chance to spae.
That fell below her knee.
She’s ta’en the apple in her hand,
To see what she might see.
And then the glass grew white,
And syne as black as the mouth o’ Hell
Or the sky on a winter night.
That ever her eyes had seen,
His hair was gold, and his eyes were grey,
And his plaid was red and green.
And unco blate,” she said;
“And they wear their mantles swart and side,
No the bonny green and red.”
That is the man for me!”
She has filled a ship wi’ the gude red gold,
And she has ta’en the sea.
And mony a man she’s seen;
But never the man wi’ the hair o’ gold,
And the plaid o’ red and green.
Till she cam’ to a narrow sea,
The water ran like a river in spate,
And the hills were wondrous hie.
And houses on the strand,
And there the man in the green and red
Came rowing frae the land.
Ye’re welcome here for me.
Are ye the Lady o’ merry Elfland,
Or the Queen o’ some far countrie?”
But I am the Queen o’ Spain.”
He’s lowted low, and kissed her hand,
Says “They ca’ me the McLean!”
That I hae sailed the faem!”
“But, out and alas!” he has answered her,
“For I hae a wife at hame.”
Or away on a tide-swept isle;”
“But, out and alas!” he’s answered her,
“For my wife’s o’ the bluido’ Argyll!”
And made their weary maen,
Till McLean has ridden to Dowart Castle,
And left the Queen her lane.
Says “Lachlan, where hae ye been?”
“Oh! I hae been at Tobermory,
And kissed the hand o’ a Queen!”
And grouse for her propine,
And we’ll send her a cask o’ the usquebaugh,
And a butt o’ the red French wine!”
And eke a burning lowe,
She has sent them away wi’ her little foot-page
That cam’ frae the black Lochow.
The last blink o’ his Queen,
There stude her ship in the harbour gude,
Upon the water green.
And a cloud on the water green.
The bonny ship in flinders flew,
And drooned was the bonny Queen.
His skian dubh he’s ta’en,
And he’s cuttit the throat o’ that fausefoot-page,
And sundered his white hausebane.p.101Keith of Craigentolly.
Ye sall live to rue the day
When ye brak the berried holly
Beside St. Andrew’s bay!
When Pitcullo’s kine
Card down to the brine,
And were drooned in the driving spray!
Is a wan and waefu’ bride,
Singing, O waly! waly!
Through the whole country side;
And a river to wade
For a dying maid,
And a weary way to ride!
The bairn’s grave by the sea!
O Keith o’ Craigentolly,
The graves of maidens three!
And a bluidy shift,
And a sainless shrift,
For Keith o’ Craigentolly!
WILLIAM CLOWES AND SONS,LIMITED,
LONDON AND BECCLES.FOOTNOTES
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