Complete Fictional Works of John Buchan (Illustrated)

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,