by John Buchan
The warld’s nae gumption in its wame;
E’en sin’ I mind the human frame
Grows scrimp and shauchled,
O’ a’ man’s warks ye canna name
Ane that’s no bauchled.
There’s mawkit sheep and feckless herds,
And poopits fou o’ senseless words;
Instead o’ kail we sup on curds,
And wersh the taste o’t;
To parritch-sticks we’ve turned our swirds,
Sae mak’ the maist o’t.
And poalitics! I’ve seen the day
I’d walk ten mile ower burn and brae
To hear some billie hae his say
Aboot the nation.
Tories and a’ their daft-like play
Fand quick damnation.
I thought — for I was young — that folk
Were a’ the same; I scorned the yoke
O’ cless or gear; wi’ pigs in poke
I took nae han’.
I daured the hale wide warld to choke
The richts o’ man.
It’s still my creed, but hech! sin’ then
We’ve got the richts and lost the men;
We’ve got a walth o’ gear to spen’
And nane to spend it;
The warld is waitin’ ripe to men’,
And nane to mend it.
Our maisters are a flock o’ daws,
Led on by twae-three hoodie craws;
They weir our siller, mak’ our laws,
And God! sic makin’!
And we sit roun’ wi’ lood applause,
And cheer their crakin’.
We’re great; but daur we lift a nieve
Wi’oot our neebors grant their leave?
We’re free, folk say, to speak, believe,
Dae what we wull —
And what’s oor gain? A din to deave
A yearlin’ bull!
A dwaibly warld! I’ll no deny
There’s orra blessin’s. I can buy
My baccy cheap, and feed as high
For half the siller;
For saxpence ony man can lie
As fou’s the miller.
A bawbee buys a walth o’ prent,
And every gowk’s in Paurliament;
The warld’s reformed — but sir, tak tent,
For a’ their threep,
There’s twae things noo that arena kent —
That’s MEN and SHEEP.
To Lionel Phillips
1909
Time, they say, must the best of us capture,
And travel and battle and gems and gold
No more can kindle the ancient rapture,
For even the youngest of hearts grows old.
But in you, I think, the boy is not over;
So take this medley of ways and wars
As a gift of a friend and a fellow-lover
Of the fairest country under the stars.
Avignon, 1759
Hearts to break but nane to sell,
Gear to tine but nane to hain; —
We maun dree a weary spell
Ere our lad comes back again.
I walk abroad on winter days,
When storms have stripped the wide champaign,
For northern winds have norland ways,
And scents of Badenoch haunt the rain.
And by the lipping river path,
When in the fog the Rhone runs grey,
I see the heather of the strath,
And watch the salmon leap in Spey.
The hills are feathered with young trees, —
I set them for my children’s boys.
I made a garden deep in ease,
A pleasance for my lady’s joys.
Strangers have heired them. Long ago
She died, — Kind fortune thus to die;
And my one son by Beauly flow
Gave up the soul that could not lie.
Old, elbow-worn, and pinched I bide
The final toll the gods may take.
The laggard years have quenched my pride;
They cannot kill the ache, the ache.
Weep not the dead, for they have sleep
Who lie at home; but ah, for me
In the deep grave my heart will weep
With longing for my lost countrie.
Hearts to break but nane to sell,
Gear to tine but nane to hain; —
We maun dree a weary spell
Ere our lad comes back again.
Wood Magic
1910
I will walk warily in the wise woods on the fringes of eventide,
For the covert is full of noises and the stir of nameless things.
I have seen in the dusk of the beeches the shapes of the lords that ride,
And down in the marish hollow I have heard the lady who sings.
And once in an April gloaming I met a maid on the sward,
All marble-white and gleaming and tender and wild of eye; —
I, Jehan the hunter, who speak am a grown man, middling hard,
But I dreamt a month of the maid, and wept I knew not why.
Down by the edge of the firs, in a coppice of heath and vine,
Is an old moss-grown alter, shaded by briar and bloom,
Denys, the priest, hath told me ‘twas the lord Apollo’s shrine
In the days ere Christ came down from God to the Virgin’s womb.
I never go past but I doff my cap and avert my eyes —
(Were Denys to catch me I trow I’d do penance for half a year) —
For once I saw a flame there and the smoke of a sacrifice,
And a voice spake out of the thicket that froze my soul with fear.
Wherefore to God the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost,
Mary the Blessed Mother, and the kindly Saints as well,
I will give glory and praise, and them I cherish the most,
For they have the keys of Heaven, and save the soul from Hell.
But likewise I will spare for the lord Apollo a grace,
And bow for the lady Venus — as a friend and not as a thrall.
‘Tis true they are out of Heaven, but some day they may win the place;
For Gods are kittle cattle, and a wise man honours them all.
Atta’s Song
1910
I will sing of thee,
Great Sea-Mother,
Whose white arms gather
Thy sons in the ending:
And draw them homeward
From far sad marches —
Wild lands in the sunset,
Bitter shores of the morning —
Soothe them and guide them
By shining pathways
Homeward to thee.
All day I have striven in dark glens
With parched throat and dim eyes,
Where the red crags choke the stream
And dank thickets hide the spear.
I have spilled the blood of my foes,
But their wolves have tom my flanks.
I am faint, O Mother,
Faint and aweary
I have longed for thy cool winds
And thy kind grey eyes
And thy lover’s arms.
At the even I came
To a land of terrors,
Of hot swamps where the feet mired
And streams that flowered red with blood.
There I strove with thousands,
Wild-eyed and lost,
As a lion among serpents.
— But sudden before me
I saw the flash
Of the sweet wide waters
That wash my homeland
And mirror the stars of home.
Then sang I for joy,
For I knew the Preserver,
Thee, the Uniter,
The great Sea-Mother.
Soon will the sweet light come,
And the salt winds and the tides
Will bear me home.
F
ar in the sunrise,
Nestled in thy bosom,
Lies my own green isle.
Thither wilt thou bear me
To where, above the sea-cliffs,
Stretch mild meadows, flower-decked, thyme-scented,
Crisp with sea breezes.
There my flocks feed
On sunny uplands,
Looking over the waters
To where mount Saos
Raises pure snows to God.
Hermes, guide of souls,
I made thee a shrine in my orchard,
And round thy olive-wood limbs
The maidens twined Spring blossoms —
Violet and helichryse
And the pale wind flowers,
Keep thou watch for me,
For I am coming.
Tell to my lady
And to all my kinsfolk
That I who have gone from them
Tarry not long, but come swift o’er the sea-path.
My feet light with joy,
My eyes bright with longing.
For little it matters
Where a man may fall,
If he fall by the sea-shore;
The kind waters await him,
The white arms are around him,
And the wise Mother of Men
Will carry him home.
I who sing
Wait joyfully on the morning.
Ten thousand beset me
And their spears ache for my heart.
They will crush me and grind me to mire,
So that none will know the man that once was me.
But at the first light I shall be gone,
Singing, flitting, o’er the grey waters,
Outward, homeward,
To thee, the Preserver,
Thee, the Uniter,
Mother the Sea.
An Echo of Meleager
1910
Scorn not my love, proud child. The summers wane.
Long ere the topmost mountain snows have gone
The Spring is fleeting; ‘neath the April rain
For one brief day flowers laugh on Helicon.
The winds that fan thy honeyed cheek this noon
To-morrow will be blasts that scourge the main;
And youth and joy and laughter pass too soon. —
Scorn not my love, proud child. The summers wane.
To-day the rose blooms in the garden-plot,
The swallows nestle by the Parian dome,
But soon the roses fade and lie forgot
And soon the swallows will be turning home.
Tempt not the arrows of the Cyprian’s eye,
List to the God who will not brook disdain.
Love is the port to which the wise barks fly.
Scorn not my love, proud child. The summers wane.
Stocks and Stones
1911
My gods, you say, are idols dumb,
Which men have wrought from wood or clay,
Carven with chisel, shaped with thumb,
A mornings task, an evening’s play.
You bid me turn my face on high
Where the blue heaven the sun enthrones,
And serve a viewless deity,
Nor make my bow to stocks and stones.
My lord, I am not skilled in wit
Nor wise in priestcraft, but I know
That fear to man is spur and bit
To jog and curb his fancies’ flow.
He fears and loves, for love and awe
In mortal souls may well unite
To fashion forth the perfect law
Where Duty takes to wife Delight.
But on each man one Fear awaits
And chills his marrow like the dead. —
He cannot worship what he hates
Or make a god of naked Dread.
The homeless winds that twist and race,
The heights of cloud that veer and roll,
The unplumb’d Abyss, the drift of Space —
These are the fears that drain the soul.
Ye dauntless ones from out the sea
Fear nought. Perchance your gods are strong
To rule the air where grim things be,
And quell the deeps with all their throng.
For me, I dread not fire nor steel,
Nor aught that walks in open light,
But fend me from the endless Wheel,
The voids of Space, the gulfs of Night.
Wherefore my brittle gods I make
Of friendly clay and kindly stone, —
Wrought with my hands, to serve or break,
From crown to toe my work, my own.
My eyes can see, my nose can smell,
My fingers touch their painted face,
They weave their little homely spell
To warm me from the cold of Space.
My gods are wrought of common stuff
For human joys and mortal tears;
Weakly, perchance, yet staunch enough
To build a barrier ‘gainst my fears,
Where, lowly but secure, I wait
And hear without the strange winds blow. —
I cannot worship what I hate
Or serve a god I dare not know.
The Wise Years
1911
I, Lapidarius, priest of the Most High
(Called, ere Christ sought me, John of Dinlay-burn),
Now in this shadowy twilight of my days
Give laud and make confession. Yester-eve
I cast lots in the Scriptures, for ‘tis right,
As Austin teaches, thus to question God.
Twofold the answer: first I found the text,
“The hour is nigh,” a token clear that soon
I must put off these tattered mortal weeds
And don the immortal raiment of the blest.
The second was the Psalm, that “to the just
Peace shall be granted while the moon endures.”
A fitting benediction, quoth my soul;
For I have ever loved the moon and sought
The gentle lore that dwelleth in her beams.
Here, in this moorland cell, long years I strove
To pierce the veil that hideth Heaven from man.
By fasts and vigils I wore thin the robe,
The fleshly robe that clogs the soul; in prayer
I from the body soared among the stars
And held high converse with the cherubim.
I moved in ecstasy, and all the land
Spake of my sainthood; people thronged from far
To gaze upon the man who walked with God.
Ah, little knew they! In my heart I wept,
For God was ever distant. Not with Him
I communed, but with fancies self-begot,
Half of sick brain and half of fevered flesh.
And then one eve—’twas at the Lammas-tide
When every twilight is a taste of Heaven,
While half-distraught I laboured, sudden came
The light that shone on Paul; I caught my breath,
Felt on my forehead the cool hand of God,
And heard His holy accents in my ear;
“Why troublest thou thyself to mount to Me
When I am with thee always? Love My world,
The good green earth I gave for thy joy.”
Then through the rushes flowered the rose of eve,
And I went forth into the dewy air,
And made my first communion with God’s world.
The robe of flesh wears thin, and with the years
God shines through all things. Time and Death are not
Nor Change, but all endures even as a tree
Bears in its secular trunk the rings of youth.
I walk by the stream and hill, at even and dawn,
In noontide’s height, in the first joy of spring,
Through the warm hours of summer, in the ripe
Soft fall of autumn, when the winter’
s spell
Hath stilled the earth to sleep; and as I go
The dear unseen companions walk with me;
The birds and beasts attend me, and their speech,
Wise as the hills, hath opened mysteries.
I hold high fellowship with souls long dead
And souls unborn, for I am one with life,
One with the earth, and almost one with God.
They name me saint no more. The abbot scowls,
The brethren flee me, and the country folk
Call me the devil’s minion. Soon, belike, —
For God may will I reach Him through the fire —
They seek to burn me as a brand of hell.
All men have shunned me, but the children come
Stealthily on a holy day with flowers
Or autumn berries; from the hazel shade
They whisper, “Brother John, come play with us,
And tell us stories of your fairy friends.”
They know, whose hearts are pure, that mine is kind,
And erreth not in loving all God gave.
They shall have comfort while the moon endures.
The hour is nigh. Behind the wattled strip
Which screens my pallet, lo! the first grey light
Creeps timorous like a fawn. My limbs are moved
To a strange exaltation... Soon the sun
Will steep the moorlands in a holier dawn,
And my thin veil of sense will fade and fall.
I shall be one with Him, and hear His speech
As friend to friend, and see Him face to face.
He findeth God who finds the earth He made....
The Green Glen waits the morning, and I go.
Sir Walter Raleigh
1911
“The Almiranty of Santa Fee
Guards to ‘tend him had fifty-three;
And pikes and muskets a goodly store,
And long-nosed cannons, forty and more
And five great ships that tossed on the sea,
Had the Almiranty of Santa Fee.
Dickon of Devon had nought to his name
But a ragged shirt and an empty fame,
An old plumed hat and the Devil’s own pride,