Wespoke of a rest in a fairy knowe of the North, but he,Far from the firths of the East, and the racing tides of the West,Sleeps in the sight and the sound of the infinite Southern Sea,Weary and well content in his grave on the Vaëa crest.
Tusitala, the lover of children, the teller of tales,Giver of counsel and dreams, a wonder, a world’s delight,Looks o’er the labours of men in the plain and the hill; and the sailsPass and repass on the sea that he loved, in the day and the night.
Winds of the West and the East in the rainy season blowHeavy with perfume, and all his fragrant woods are wet,Winds of the East and West as they wander to and fro,Bear him the love of the land he loved, and the long regret.
Once we were kindest, he said, when leagues of the limitless seaFlowed between us, but now that no wash of the wandering tidesSunders us each from each, yet nearer we seem to be,Whom only the unbridged stream of the river of Death divides.
Thereis no venom in the RoseThat 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!
Nature herself to deadly flowersRefuseth beauty lest the vainInsects that hum through August hoursWith beauty should suck in their bane;But thou, as Rose or Lily fair,Art circled with envenomed air!
Like Progne didst thou lose thy tongue,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.
Werean apple tree a pine,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!
Had the Amazonian QueenSeen thee ’midst thy maiden peers,Thou the Coronel hadst beenOf that lady’s Grenadiers;Troy had never mourned her fall,With thine axe to guard her wall.
As Penthesilea braveIs 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!
ByR. B.
Whatif we call it fifty years! ’Tis steep!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 are ours”?Or any times, i’fegs, to him who thinks,—Well ’twas in Spring “the frolic myrtle treesThere 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 gloomNo less than gladness in your fifty years,“And so,” said he, “to supper as we may.”“Voltairean?” So you take it; but ’tis late,And dinner seven, sharp, at Primrose Hill.
Poscimur!
ByA. D.
ABirthday OdeforMegorNan,A Rhyme for LadyFlora’s Fan,A Verse onSmut, who’s gone astray,These Things are in thePoet’sway;At Home with praise ofJulia’s Lace,OrDelia’s Ankles,Rose’s Face,But “Somethingoverparted” He,When asked to rhyme thejubilee!
He therefore turns, thePoetwary,And Thumbs hisCarmen Seculare,ToPhœbusand toDianprays,Who tune Men’s Lyres of Holidays,He reads of theSibyllineShades,Of Stainless Boys and chosen Maids.He turns, and reads the other Page,Of docile Youth, and placid Age,Then Sings how, in this golden YearFides Pudorquereappear,—And if they don’t appear, you know itWere quite unjust to blame the Poet!
ByM. A.
Yes, in the stream and stress of things,That breaks around us like the sea,There comes to Peasants and to Kings,The solemn Hour of Jubilee.If they, till strenuous Nature giveSome fifty harvests, chance to live!
Ah, Fifty harvests! But the cornIs grown beside the barren main,Is salt with sea-spray, blown and borneAcross the green unvintaged plain.And life, lived out for fifty years,Is briny with the spray of tears!
Ah, such is Life, to us that liveHere, in the twilight of the Gods,Who weigh each gift the world can give,And sigh and murmur,What’s the oddsSo long’s you’re happy? Nay, what ManFinds Happiness since Time began?
ByA. C. S.
Me, that have sung and shrieked, and foamed in praise of Freedom,Medo you ask to singParochial pomps, and waste, the wail of JubileedomFor Queen, or Prince, or King!
* * * * *
Nay, by the foam that fleeting oars have feathered,In Grecian seas;Nay, by the winds that barques Athenian weathered—By all of theseI bid you each be mute, Bards tamed and tethered,And fee’d with fees!
For you the laurel smirched, for you the gold, too,Of Magazines;For me the Spirit of Song, unbought, unsold toPale Priests or Queens!
For you the gleam of gain, the fluttering chequeOf Mr. Knowles,For me, to soar above the ruins and wreckOf Snobs and “Souls”!
When aflush with the dew of the dawn, and theRose of the Mystical Vision,The spirit and soul of the Men of theFuture shall rise and be free,They shall hail me with hymning and harping,With eloquent Art and Elysian,—The Singer who sung not but spurned them,The slaves that could sing “Jubilee;”With pinchbeck lyre and tongue,Praising their tyrant sung,They shall fail and shall fade in derision,As wind on the ways of the sea!
ByW. M.
“Tellme, O Muse of the Shifty, the Man who wandered afar,”So have I chanted of late, and of Troy burg wasted of war—Now of the sorrows of Menfolk that fifty years have been,Now of the Grace of the Commune I sing, and the days of a Queen!Surely I curse rich Menfolk, “the Wights of the Whirlwind” may they—This is my style of translating ‘Αρπυίαι,—snatch them away!The Rich Thieves rolling in wealth that make profit of labouring men,Surely the Wights of the Whirlwind shall swallow them quick in their den!O baneful, O wit-straying, in the Burg of London ye dwell,And ever of 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 by main.”(By “main” I mean “main force,” if aught at all do I mean.In the Greek of the blindfold Bard it is simpler the sense to glean.)You Polyphemus shall swallow and fill his mighty maw,What time he maketh an end of the Priests, the Police, and the Law,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” could scarcely expound what I mean,And I trow that another were fitter to sing you a song for a Queen.
I.
Oh, fair apple tree, and oh, fair apple tree,As heavy and sweet as the blossoms on thee,My heart is heavy with love.It wanteth but a little windTo make the blossoms fall;It wanteth but a young loverTo win me heart and all.
II.
I send my love lettersBy larks on the wing;My love sends me lettersWhen nightingales sing.
Without reading or writing,Their burden we know:They only say, “Love me,Who love you so.”
III.
And if they ask for me, brother,Say I come never home,For I have taken a strange wifeBeyond the salt sea foam.
The green grass is my bridal bed,The black tomb my good mother,The stones and dust within the graveAre my sister and my brother.
TheKing has gi’en the Queen a gift,For her May-day’s propine,He’s gi’en her a band o’ the diamond-stane,Set in the siller fine.
The Queen she walked inFalklandyaird,Beside the Hollans green,And there she saw the bonniest manThat ever her eyes had seen.
His coat was the Ruthven white and red,Sae sound asleep was heThe Queen she cried on May Beatrix,That seely lad to see.
“Oh! wha sleeps here, May Beatrix,Without the leave o’ me?”“Oh! wha suld it be but my young brotherFraePaduaower the sea!
“My father was the Earl Gowrie,An Earl o’ high degree,But they hae slain him by fause treason,And gar’d my brothers flee.
“AtPaduahae they learned their leirIn the fields o’Italie;And they hae crossed the saut sea-faem,And a’ for love o’ me!”
* * * *
The Queen has cuist her siller bandAbout his craig o’ snaw;But still he slept and naething kenned,Aneth the Hollans shaw.
The King he daundered thro’ the yaird,He saw the siller shine;“And wha,” quoth he, “is this galliardThat wears yon gift o’ mine?”
The King has gane till the Queen’s ain bower,An angry man that day;But bye there cam’ May BeatrixAnd stole the band away.
And she’s run in by the dern black yett,Straight till the Queen ran she:“Oh! tak ye back your siller band,Or it gar my brother dee!”
The Queen has linked her siller bandAbout her middle sma’;And then she heard her ain gudemanCome rowting through the ha’.
“Oh! whare,” he cried, “is the siller bandI gied ye late yestreen?The knops was a’ o’ the diamond stane,Set in the siller sheen.”
“Ye hae camped birling at the wine,A’ nicht till the day did daw;Or ye wad ken your siller bandAbout my middle sma’!”
The King he stude, the King he glowered,Sae hard as a man micht stare.“Deil hae me! Like is a richt ill mark,—Or I saw it itherwhere!
“I saw it round young Ruthven’s neckAs he lay sleeping still;And, faith, but the wine was wondrous guid,Or my wife is wondrous ill!”
* * * *
There was na gane a week, a week,A week but barely three;The King has hounded John Ramsay out,To gar young Ruthven dee!
They took him in his brother’s house,Nae sword was in his hand,And they hae slain him, young Ruthven,The bonniest in the land!
And they hae slain his fair brother,And laid him on the green,And a’ for a band o’ the siller fineAnd a blink o’ the eye o’ the Queen!
Oh! had they set him man to man,Or even ae man to three,There was na a knight o’ the Ramsay bluidHad gar’d Earl Gowrie dee!
ABallad of the Sound of Mull.
1588.
TheQueen o’ Spain had an ill gude-man.The carle was auld and grey.She has keeked in the glass at Hallow-eenA better chance to spae.
She’s kaimit out her lang black hair,That fell below her knee.She’s ta’en the apple in her hand,To see what she might see.
Then first she saw her ain fair face,And then the glass grew white,And syne as black as the mouth o’ HellOr the sky on a winter night.
But last she saw the bonniest manThat ever her eyes had seen,His hair was gold, and his eyes were grey,And his plaid was red and green.
“Oh! the Spanish men are unco blackAnd unco blate,” she said;“And they wear their mantles swart and side,No the bonny green and red.”
“Oh! where shallIfind sic a man?That is the man for me!”She has filled a ship wi’ the gude red gold,And she has ta’en the sea.
And she’s sailed west and she’s sailed east,And mony a man she’s seen;But never the man wi’ the hair o’ gold,And the plaid o’ red and green.
And she’s sailed east and she’s sailed west,Till she cam’ to a narrow sea,The water ran like a river in spate,And the hills were wondrous hie.
And there she spied a bonny bay,And houses on the strand,And there the man in the green and redCame rowing frae the land.
Says “Welcome here, ye bonny maid,Ye’re welcome here for me.Are ye the Lady o’ merry Elfland,Or the Queen o’ some far countrie?”
“I am na the Lady o’ fair Elfland,But I am the Queen o’ Spain.”He’s lowted low, and kissed her hand,Says “They ca’ me the McLean!”
“Then it’s a’ for the aefold love o’ theeThat I hae sailed the faem!”“But, out and alas!” he has answered her,“For I hae a wife at hame.”
“Ye maun cast her into a massymore,Or away on a tide-swept isle;”“But, out and alas!” he’s answered her,“For my wife’s o’ the bluid o’ Argyll!”
Oh! they twa sat, and they twa grat,And made their weary maen,Till McLean has ridden to Dowart Castle,And left the Queen her lane.
His wife was a Campbell, fair and fause,Says “Lachlan, where hae ye been?”“Oh! I hae been at Tobermory,And kissed the hand o’ a Queen!”
“Oh! we maun send the Queen a stag,And grouse for her propine,And we’ll send her a cask o’ the usquebaugh,And a butt o’ the red French wine!”
She has put a bomb in the clairet butt,And eke a burning lowe,She has sent them away wi’ her little foot-pageThat cam’ frae the black Lochow.
* * * *
The morn McLean rade forth to seeThe last blink o’ his Queen,There stude her ship in the harbour gude,Upon the water green.
But there cam’ a crash like a thunder-clap,And a cloud on the water green.The bonny ship in flinders flew,And drooned was the bonny Queen.
McLean he speirit nor gude nor bad,His skian dubh he’s ta’en,And he’s cuttit the throat o’ that fause foot-page,And sundered his white hausebane.
OKeitho’ Craigentolly!Ye sall live to rue the dayWhen ye brak the berried hollyBeside St. Andrew’s bay!When Pitcullo’s kineCard down to the brine,And were drooned in the driving spray!
In the bower o’ CraigentollyIs a wan and waefu’ bride,Singing,O waly!waly!Through the whole country side;And a river to wadeFor a dying maid,And a weary way to ride!
O Keith o’ Craigentolly,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!
PRINTED BYWILLIAM CLOWES AND SONS, LIMITED,LONDON AND BECCLES.
[11]One verse and the refrain are of 1750 or thereabouts. At Laffen, where William, Duke of Cumberland, was defeated and nearly captured by the Scots and Irish in the French service, Prince Charles is said to have served as a volunteer.
[32]So Nyren tells us.