by John Buchan
Thyme and hinny and heather,
Jeniper, birk and fern,
Rose in the lown June weather.
It minded me o’ auld days,
When I wandered barefit there,
Guddlin’ troot in the burns,
Howkin’ the tod frae his lair.
If a’ the hills were graves
There was peace for the folk aneath
And peace for the folk abune,
And life in the hert o’ death....
Up frae the howe o’ the glen
Cam the murmur o’ wells that creep
To swell the heids o’the burns,
And the kindly voices o’ sheep.
And the cry o’ a whaup on the wing,
And a plover seekin’ its bield. —
And oot o’ my crazy lugs
Went the din o’the battlefield.
I flang me doun on my knees
And I prayed as my hert wad break,
And I got my answer sune,
For oot o’ the nicht God spake.
As a man that wauks frae a stound
And kens but a single thocht,
Oot o’ the wind and the nicht
I got the peace that I socht.
Loos and the Lammerlaw,
The battle was feucht in baith,
Death was roond and abune,
But life in the hert o’ death.
A’ the warld was a grave,
But the grass on the graves was green,
And the stanes were bields for hames,
And the laddies played atween.
Kneelin’ aside the cairn
On the heather and thymy sod,
The place I had kenned as a bairn,
I made my peace wi’ God.
The Great Ones
1916
Ae mom aside the road frae Bray
I wrocht my squad to mend the track;
A feck o’ sodgers passed that way
And garred me often straucht my back.
By cam a General on a horse,
A jinglin’ lad on either side.
I gie’d my best salute of course,
Weel pleased to see sic honest pride.
And syne twae Frenchmen in a cawr —
Yon are the lads to speel the braes;
They speldered me inch-deep wi’ glaur
And verra near ran ower my taes.
And last the pipes, and at their tail
Oor gaucy lads in martial line.
I stopped my wark and cried them hail,
And wished them weel for auld lang syne.
An auld chap plooin’ on the muir
Ne’er jee’d his heid nor held his han’,
But drave his furrow straucht and fair, —
Thinks I, “But ye’re the biggest man.”
Fisher Jamie
1916
Puir Jamie’s killed. A better lad
Ye wouldna find to busk a flee
Or burn a pule or weild a gad
Frae Berwick to the Clints o’ Dee.
And noo he’s in a happier land. —
It’s Gospel truith and Gospel law
That Heaven’s yett maun open stand
To folk that for their country fa’.
But Jamie will be ill to mate;
He lo’ed nae music, kenned nae tunes
Except the sang o’Tweed in spate,
Or Talla loupin’ ower its linns.
I sair misdoot that Jamie’s heid
A croun o’ gowd will never please;
He liked a kep o’ dacent tweed
Whaur he could stick his casts o’ flees.
If Heaven is a’ that man can dream
And a’ that honest herts can wish,
It maun provide some muirland stream,
For Jamie dreamed o’ nocht but fish.
And weel I wot he’ll up and speir
In his bit blate and canty way,
Wi’ kind Apostles standin’ near
Whae in their time were fishers tae.
He’ll offer back his gowden croun
And in its place a rod he’ll seek,
And bashfu’-like his herp lay doun
And speir a leister and a cleek.
For Jims had aye a poachin’ whim;
He’ll sune grow tired, wi’ lawfu’ flee
Made frae the wings o’ cherubim,
O’ castin’ ower the Crystal Sea....
I picter him at gloamin’ tide
Steekin’ the backdoor o’ his hame
And hastin’ to the waterside
To play again the auld auld game;
And syne wi’ saumon on his back,
Catch’t clean against the Heavenly law,
And Heavenly byliffs on his track,
Gaun linkin’ doun some Heavenly shaw.
The ‘Lusitania’ Waits
1916
Long, long ago He said,
He who could wake the dead,
And walk upon the sea —
“Come follow Me.
“Leave your brown nets and bring
Only your hearts to sing,
Only your souls to pray,
Rise, come away.
“Shake out your spirit-sails,
And brave those wilder gales,
And I will make you then
Fishers of men.”
Was this, then, what He meant?
Was this His high intent,
After two thousand years
Of blood and tears?
God help us, if we fight
For right and not for might.
God help us if we seek
To shield the weak.
Then, though His heaven be far
From this blind welter of war,
He’ll bless us on the sea
From Calvary.
Wireless
Now to those who search the deep,
Gleam of Hope and Kindly Light,
Once, before you turn to sleep,
Breathe a message through the night.
Never doubt that they’ll receive it.
Send it, once, and you’ll believe it.
Wrecks that burn against the stars,
Decks where death is wallowing green,
Snare the breath among the spars,
Hear the flickering threads between,
Quick, through all the storms that blind them.
Quick with worlds that rush to find them.
Think you these aerial wires
Whisper more than spirits may?
Think you that our strong desires
Touch no distance when we pray?
Think you that no wings are flying
‘Twixt the living and the dying?
Inland, here, upon your knees,
You shall breathe from urgent lips,
Round the ships that guard your seas,
Fleet on fleet of angel ships;
Yea, the guarded may so bless them
That no terrors can distress them.
You shall guide the darkling prow,
Kneeling thus — and far inland —
You shall touch the storm-beat brow
Gently as a spirit-hand.
Even a blindfold prayer may speed them,
And a little child may lead them.
Alastair Buchan
1917
A.E.B.
Born 12th June, 1894
Died of Wounds received at Arras, 9th April, 1917
I
A mile or two from Arras town
The yellow moorland stretches far,
And from its crest the roads go down
Like arrows to the front of war.
All day the laden convoys pass,
The sunburnt troops are swinging by,
And far above the trampled grass
The droning planes climb up the sky.
In April when I passed that way
An April joy was in the breeze;
The hollows of the woods were gay
/> With slender-stalked anemones.
The horn of Spring was faintly blown,
Bidding a ransomed world awake,
Nor could the throbbing batteries drown
The nesting linnets in the brake.
And as I stood beside the grave,
Where ‘mid your kindly Scots you lie,
I could not think that one so brave,
So glad of heart, so kind of eye.
Had found the deep and dreamless rest,
Which men may crave who bear the scars
Of weary decades on their breast,
And yearn for slumber after wars.
You scarce had shed your boyhood’s years,
In every vein the blood ran young,
Your soul uncramped by ageing fears,
Your tales untold, your songs unsung.
As if my sorrow to beguile,
I heard the ballad’s bold refrain:
“I’ll lay me downe and bleed a-while,
And then I’ll rise and fight again.”
II
Long, long ago, when all the lands
Were deep in peace as summer sea,
God chose His squires, and trained their hands
For those stem lists of liberty.
You made no careful plans for life,
Happy with dreams and books and friends,
Incurious of our worldly strife,
As dedicate to nobler ends;
Like some young knight, who kept his sword
Virgin from common broils that he
Might flesh it on the Paynim horde
When Richard stormed through Galilee.
I mind how on the hills of home
You ever lagged and strayed aside,
A brooding boy whose thoughts would roam
O’er gallant fates that might betide.
But not the wildest dreams of youth,
Bom of the sunset and the spring,
Could match the splendour of the truth
That waited on your journeying —
The ancient city deep in night,
The wind among its crumbling spires;
The assembly in the chill twilight
Murky with ghosts of wayward fires;
The last brave words; the outward march;
The punctual shells, whose ceaseless beat
Made the dark sky an echoing arch
Pounded without by demon feet;
While with the mom wild April blew
Her snows across the tortured mead,
The spring-time gales that once you knew
In glens beside the founts of Tweed;
And then the appointed hour; the dread
Gun-flare that turned the sleet to flame,
When, the long vigil o’er, you led
Your men to purge the world of shame.
I know that in your soul was then
No fear to irk or hate to mar,
But a strong peace and joy as when
The Sons of God go forth to war.
You did not fail till you had won
The utmost trench and knew the pride
Of a high duty nobly done
And a great longing satisfied.
You left the line with jest and smile
And heart that would not bow to pain —
I’ll lay me down and bleed a-while,
And then I’ll rise and fight again.
III
We cannot grieve that youth so strong
Should miss the encroaching frosts of age,
The sordid fears, the unnerving throng
Of cares that are man’s heritage.
A boy in years, you travelled far
And found perfection in short space;
By the stem sacrament of war
You grew in gifts and power and grace,
Until, with soul attuned and tried,
You reached full manhood, staunch and free,
And bore a spirit o’er the tide
Most ripe for immortality.
We cannot tell what grave pure light
Illumes for you our earthly show,
What heavenly love and infinite
Wisdom is yours; but this we know; —
That just beyond our senses’ veil
You dwell unseen in youth and joy,
Joy which no languid years can pale
Youth which is younger than the boy.
Your kindly voice enhearten still,
Your happy laughter is not dead,
And when we roam our Border hill
You walk beside with lighter tread.
All day where lies your valiant dust
The troops go by to hold the line;
They never steel for ward or thrust
But you are with them, brother mine.
Still, still you list the ancient tunes,
The comrade fire is with you yet;
Still, still you lead your worn platoons
Beyond the farthest parapet.
And when to chaos and black night
At last the broken eagles flee,
Your heart will know the stem delight
Of his who succours liberty.
I stood beside your new-made grave,
And as I mused my sorrow fled,
Save for those mortal thoughts that crave
For sight of those whom men call dead.
I knew you moved in ampler powers,
A warrior in a purer strife,
Walking that world that shall be ours
When death has called us dead to life.
The rough white cross above your breast,
The earth ungraced by flower or stone,
Are bivouac marks of those that rest
One instant ere they hasten on.
More fit such grave than funeral pile,
Than requiem dirge and ballad strain:
I’ll lay me downe and bleed a-while,
And then I’ll rise and fight again.
The Kirk Bell
1917
When oor lads gaed ower the tap
It was nine o’ a Sabbath mom.
I felt as my hert wad stap,
And wished I had ne’er been bom;
I wished I had ne’er been bom
For I feared baith the foe and mysel’,
Till there fell on my ear forlorn
The jow o’ an auld kirk bell.
For a moment the guns were deid,
Sae I heard it faint and far;
And that bell was ringin’ inside my heid
As I stauchered into the war.
I heard nae ither soun’,
Though the air was a wild stramash,
And oor barrage beat the grun’
Like the crack o’ a cairter’s lash,
Like the sting o’ lang whup lash;
And ilk breath war a prayer or an aith,
And whistle and drone and crash
Made the pitiless sang o’ death.
But in a’ that deavin’ din
Like the cry o’ the lost in Hell,
I was hearkenin’to a peacefu’tune
In the jow o’ a far-off bell.
I had on my Sabbath claes,
And was steppin’ doucely the gait
To the kirk on the broomy braes;
I was standin’ aside the yett,
Crackin’ aside the yett;
And syne I was singin’ lood
‘Mang the lasses snod and blate
Wi’ their roses and southernwood.
I hae nae mind o’ the tex’
For the psalm was the thing for me,
And I gied a gey wheen Huns their paiks
To the tune o’ auld “Dundee.”
They tell me I feucht like wud,
And I’ve got a medal to shaw,
But in a’ that habble o’ smoke and bluid
My mind was far awa’;
My mind was far awa’
In the peace o’ a simmer glen,
Daund
erin’ hame ower the heathery law,
Wi’ twae-three ither men....
But sudden the lift grew red
Ere we wan to the pairtin’ place;
And the next I kenned I was lyin’ in bed
And a Sister washin’ my face.
My faither was stench U.P.;
Nae guid in Rome could he fin’;
But, this war weel ower, I’m gaun back to see
That kirk ahint the line —
That kirk ahint oor line,
And siller the priest I’ll gie
To pray for the sauls o’ the deid langsyne
Whae bigged the steeple for me.
It’s no that I’m chief wi’the Pape,
But I owe the warld to yon bell;
And the beadle that swung the rape
Will get half a croun for himsel’.
Home Thoughts From Abroad
1917
No me!
By God! No me!
Aince we hae lickit oor faes
And aince I get oot o’this hell
For the rest o’ my leevin’ days
I’ll mak a pet o’ mysel’.
I’ll haste me back wi’an Eident fit
And settle again in the same auld bit.
And oh! the comfort to snowk again
The reek o’ my mither’s but-and-ben,
The wee box-bed and the ingle neuk
And the kail-pat hung frae the chimley-heuk!
I’ll gang back to the shop like a laddie to play,
Tak doun the shutters at skreigh o’ day,
And weigh oot floor wi’ a carefu’ pride,
And hear the clash o’ the countraside.
I’ll wear for ordinar’ a roond hard hat,