by John Buchan
But I’m a multi-millionaire.
I own no fatherland nor laws;
The watchword of the world I hear,
A pleasant music in my ear,
For I can turn them to my cause.
I float their play above my tents,
I spur the people on to fight,
And when they perish in the night
I turn me to my tent for cents.
But if in spite of all my care
Some breath of danger came to me,
Why, then, I sail across the sea
And buy a house in Grosvenor Square.
And when at length this body dies,
The Lord will never say me no.
With thirty thousand, pounds or so
I’ll buy a pass for Paradise.
Ours were the jobs of elder years, —
Our lady of the Snows and Tears,
Angus the Subtle, Circean grey,
And Morag of the Misty Day.
You in such lore were woundrous wise,
My princess of the shining eyes.
Our favour was the Crimson Rose.
Our light the glow-worms’ lamp, our ways
The Road the King of Errin goes,
And that is to the End of Days.
And now — ah, now our paths have strayed
Far from the happy upland shade,
For we have grown so old, so old,
And I am stiff and you are cold.
Your hair is autumn-brown, your face
Fair with your old inviolate grace.
But now, too clever, you and I,
For simple earth and simple sky
Must toil and fret and build our plans,
Matching our strength with God’s and man’s.
So be it, dear. If to achieve,
To stand above the crowd and leave
Old common raptures to the base,
If to press ceaseless in the race,
Be happiness, then we may win
To that triumphant sanhedrim.
But at last may it not fall
That, from our watch-towers scanning all,
Our work, our hope, our labour done,
Our little art beneath the sun.
The petty fame which blinds our eyes,
Our transient philosophies,
There rankle in our hearts a sting?
May it not hap that we shall fling
Our gold aside as earth and dross,
And mourn irrevocable loss?
God knoweth dear, for at the door
I hear an echo evermore,
Chill as the chill October rain,
“Can ye attain, can ye attain?”
Midian’s Evil Day’
1904
Dear Reverend Sir, — I take my pen
To tell yon great occasion when
We garred our licht shine afore men,
Yea, far and wide,
And smote the oppressor but and ben
For a’ his pride.
Yoursel’, ye mind, was far frae weel —
A cauld we catch’t at Kippenshiel,
Forbye rheumatics in your heel —
And thus it came,
Fou though ye were o’ holy zeal,
Ye stopped at hame.
For me, my lamin’-time was bye,
The muirland hay was nane sae high,
The men were thrang, the grund was dry,
Sae when ye spak,
And bade me gang and testify,
I heldna back.
Wi’dowie hert I left that mom,
Reflectin’ on the waefu’ scorn
The Kirk man thole, her courts forlorn,
Her pillars broke,
While Amalek exalts his horn,
And fills his poke,
I pondered the mischances sair
The Lord had garred puir Scotland bear
Frae English folk baith late and ear’
Sin’ Flodden year
To the twae beasts at Carlisle fair
I bocht ower dear.
If true religion got a fa’
Frae her auld courts and guid Scots law,
What hope o’ succour far awa’
‘Mang godless chiels,
Whae at the Word sae crousely craw
And fling their heels.
As weel expect the Gospel sap ‘ill
Rise in uncovenantit thrapple
As saw a ploom to raise an apple,
Or think a soo
Fleein’ aloft on the hoose-tap ‘ill
Sit like a doo.
I like an owl in desert was,
When to the coorts I buid to pass,
Amang the crood to hear the Cause.
Nae freend I saw, —
Juist some auld lads set oot in raws
And belchin’ law.
But ane sat cockit in atween,
A wee man but as gleg’s a preen:
A walth o’ sense was in his een
And foreheid massy.
“The Chancellor,” I was tellt, when keen
I speired whae was he.
Wi’ prayerfu’ mind I watched the stert
While Maister Johnston played his pairt,
And sune I fand my anxious hert
Gie a great loup.
“Yon Chancellor the ungodly’s cairt,”
I said, “will coup.”
O sir, that day I kent indeed
There’s men o’ worth across the Tweed,
Men whae are steadfast in the creed
As Moses sel’,
Men whae the Word o’ God can read
And cling to Hell.
I thocht they were a careless race,
Decked oot in cauld Erastian claes,
Whae traivelled a’ in slippery ways,
Whase thochts were vain:
But noo I ken they’ve gifts and grace
E’en like oor ain.
A Lowden chiel — black be his tryst! —
A wise-like man, but ill advised,
Led on the hosts o’ Antichrist,
And threepit bauld,
That man could never back be wysed
To Calvin’s fauld.
He made the yett o’ Heaven sae wide
The veriest stirk could get inside:
Puffed up he was wi’ warldly pride
And fou o’ German,
Quotin’ auld pagans for his guide
And sic-like vermin.
He fuecht wi’ Prophets, jouked wi’ Psalms,
He got his legs clean ower the trams,
He garred th’ Apostles skip like rams
Tae dae his biddin’s:
Oor auld Confessions were but shams,
Their loss guid riddance.
God foreordained some men to Hell —
Granted, but man can please himsel’
Up to a point — and if I dwell
Mair on free-will
Than on election, I do well,
A Christian still.
“For these are mysteries,” quo’ he,
“Whereon nae twae men can agree,
And sae it’s richt for you and me —
The thing’s sae kittle —
Ane to consider half a lee, —
Whilk — maitters little.
“It’s a’,” he said, “confusion wild;
In siccan things the best’s a child;
Some walk an ell and some a mile;
But never fear,
Thae doots will a’ be reconciled
In higher sphere.
“Therefore a kirk, whase lamps are bright,
Bequeathed by auld divines o’ might,
Can fling them tapsalteerie quite,
And think nae shame;
For white is black and black is white,
It’s a’ the same.”
But what availed his carnal lear
Against a man o’ faith and prayer?
As through the thristles gangs the share
; And dings them doun,
E’en sae the Chancellor cleft him fair
Frae heel to croun.
He pinned him wi’ the Bible words,
He clove at him wi’ Calvin’s swirds,
He garred him loup aboot the boards
Wi’ muckle mense,
And bund him wi’ the hempen cords
O’ plain guid sense.
“Threep as ye please, It’s clear to me,
Whither or no’ the twae agree,
Baith doctrines were appoint to be
The Kirk’s chief pillar.
If ane ye like to leave,” says he,
“Ye leave the siller.”
Oh, wi’ what unction he restored
The auld commandments o’ the Lord,
Confoonded Bashan’s nowt that roared,
And ‘stablished Hell!
Knox was nae soonder in the Word
Nor Calvin’s sel’.
I’ll no’ deny yon Lowden chiel
Was gleg as ony slippery eel,
For twae-three men frae Kippensheil
Begood to waver;
I half inclined to doot the Deil
A’ through his claver.
But when a man o’ faith and power
Uprose, he couldna bide an hour:
The weakest’s doots were tided ower
Anither towmont.
The Kirk stood firm as auld stane tower
Wi’ safe endowment.
I hae a bull, a noble breed,
A shorthorn wi’ a massy heid,
Wi’ quarters fine and coat o’ reid:
On ilka lea
Frae Thurso to the banks o’Tweed
He bears the gree.
I ca’ed him Begg the same’s his sire;
But noo for sign to a’ the shire
O’ yon great day when frae the mire
Our feet we bore,
His name shall be in field and byre
“The Chancellor.”
The Song of the Sea Captain
1905
I sail a lone sea captain
Around the southern seas;
Worn as my cheek, the flag of Christ
Floats o’er me on the breeze.
By green isle and by desert,
By little white-walled town,
To west wind and to east wind
I lead my galleons down.
I know the black south-easter,
I know the drowsy calms
When the slow tide creeps shoreward
To lave the idle palms.
Of many a stark sea battle
The Muslim foe can tell,
When their dark dhows I sent to crabs
And their dark souls to hell.
Small reck have I of Muslim
Small reck of winds and seas,
The waters are my pathway
To bring me to my ease.
The dawns that burn above me
Are torches set to light
My footsteps to a garden
Of roses red and white.
Five months we stood from Lagos,
While, scant of food and sleep,
We tracked da Gama’s highroad
Across the Guinea deep.
All spent we were with watching
When, ghostly as a dream,
The Bona Esoeranza cape
Rose dark upon the beam.
Then by the low green inlets
We groped our passage forth,
Outside the shallow surf-bars
We headed for the north.
Sofala gave us victual,
Inyaka ease and rest,
But of the wayside harbours
I loved Melinda best.
‘Twas on a day in April,
The feast of Rosaly,
We beached our weary vessels,
Cried farewell to the sea,
And with ten stout companions
And hearts with youth made bold
We sought the inland mountains
Of which our fathers told.
No chart had we or counsel
To guide our weary feet,
To north and west we wandered
In drought and dust and heat,
Till o’er the steaming tree-tops
We saw the far-off dome
Of mystic icy mountains,
And knew the Prester’s home.
Nine days we clomb the foothills,
Nine days the mountain wall,
Sheer cliff and ancient forest
And fretted waterfall;
And on the tenth we entered
A meadow cool and deep,
And in the Prester’s garden
We laid us down to sleep.
Long time we fared like princes
In palaces of stone,
For never guest goes cheerless
Who meets with Prester John;
Where woodlands mount to gardens
And gardens climb to snows
And wells of living water
Sing rondels to the rose.
And there among the roses,
More white and red than they,
There walked the gleaming lady,
The princess far away.
Dearer her golden tresses
Than the high pomp of wars,
And deep and still her eyes as lakes
That brood beneath the stars.
There walked we and there spoke we
Of things that may not cease,
Of life and death and God’s dear love
And the eternal peace.
For in that shadowed garden
The world has grown so small
That one white girl in one white hand
Could clasp and hold it all.
I craved the Prester’s blessing,
I kissed his kingly hand:
“Too soon has come the parting
From this fair mountain land.
But shame it were for Christian knight
To take his leisure here
When o’er the broad and goodly earth
The Muslim sends his fear.
“I go to gird my sword on,
To drive my fleets afar,
To court the wrath of tempests,
The dusty toils of war.
But when my vows are ended,
Then, joyous from the fray,
I come to claim my lady,
The princess far away.”
I sail a lone sea captain
Across the southern seas;
Worn as my cheek, the flag of Christ
Still flaunts upon the breeze.
By green isle and by desert,
By little white-walled town,
To west wind and to east wind
I lead my galleons down.
But in the starkest tempest,
And where the drowsy heats,
Where on the shattered coral
The far-drawn breaker beats:
In seas of dreaming water,
And in the wind-swept spray,
I see my snow-white lady,
The princess far away.
Sometimes in inland places
We march for weary days,
Where thorns parch in the noontide
Or the fens are dark with haze; —
For me ‘tis but a march of dreams,
For ever, clear and low,
I hear cool waters falling
In the garden of the snow.
Small reck have I of Muslim,
Small reck of sands or seas;
The wide world is my pathway
To lead me to my ease.
The dawns that burn above me
Are torches set to light
My footsteps to a garden
Of roses red and white.
A Lodge in the Wilderness
1906
“Rests not the wild-deer in the park,
The wild-foul in the pen,
Nor nests the heaven-aspiring lark
> Where throng the prints of men.
He who the King’s Path once hath trod
Stays on in slumbrous isle,
But seeks where blow the winds of God
His lordly domicile.
Where ‘neath the red-rimmed Arctic sun
The ice-bound whaler frets,
Where in the mom the salmon run
Far-shining to the nets;
Where young republics pitch their tents
Beside the Western wave,
And set their transient Presidents
As targets for the brave;
Where through th’ illimitable plains
Nigerian currents flow,
And many a wily savage brains
His unsuspecting foe;
Where gleam the lights of shrine and joss,
From some far isle of blue,
Where screams beneath the Southern Cross
The lonely cockatoo;
Where in the starlit Eastern night
The dusky dervish sleeps,
Where the loan lama waits the light
On Kanchenjunga’s steeps;
Where Indian rajahs quaff their pegs
And chase the listless flies,
Where mazed amid a pile of kegs
Th’ inebriate trader lies;
There, o’er the broad and goodly earth,
Go seek th’ imperial soul.
Broken the barriers of his birth,
Th’ eternal heavens his goal.
In wind or wet, in drink or debt,
Steeled heart no fate can stir,
He is the Render of the Net,
Th’ Immortal Wanderer.”
Youth
Angel of love and light and truth,
In whose deep eyes the stars are set,
And in whose calm unchanging youth
The mysteries of the world have met,
What means thy forward-beckoning hand,
The steadfast brow, the enraptur’d gaze?
They point me to a lonely land —
I cannot pierce the twilight haze.
With thee of old I walked at noon.
In gardens where the airs were kind,
And from thy lips I read the rune
Of joy in every wave and wind.
We roamed blue hills of far romance,