Tusitala.
We spoke 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 sails
Pass 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
blow
Heavy 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 sea
Flowed between us, but now that no wash of the
wandering tides
Sunders us each from each, yet nearer we seem to be,
Whom only the unbridged stream of the river of Death
divides.
Disdainful Diaphenia.
There is no venom in
the Rose
That 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 flowers
Refuseth beauty lest the vain
Insects that hum through August hours
With 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.
Tall Salmacis.
Were an 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 Queen
Seen thee ’midst thy maiden peers,
Thou the Coronel hadst been
Of that lady’s Grenadiers;
Troy had never mourned her fall,
With thine axe to guard her wall.
As Penthesilea brave
Is 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!
JUBILEE POEMS
BY BARDS WHO WERE SILENT
What Francesco said of the Jubilee.
By R. B.
What if 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 trees
There 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 gloom
No 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.
The Poet and the Jubilee.
Poscimur!
By A. D.
A Birthday Ode for Meg or Nan,
A Rhyme for Lady Flora’s Fan,
A Verse on Smut, who’s gone astray,
These Things are in the Poet’s way;
At Home with praise of Julia’s
Lace,
Or Delia’s Ankles, Rose’s Face,
But “Something overparted” He,
When asked to rhyme the jubilee!
He therefore turns, the Poet wary,
And Thumbs his Carmen Seculare,
To Phœbus and to Dian prays,
Who tune Men’s Lyres of Holidays,
He reads of the Sibylline Shades,
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 Year
Fides Pudorque reappear,—
And if they don’t appear, you know it
Were quite unjust to blame the Poet!
On any Beach.
By M. 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
give
Some fifty harvests, chance to
live!
Ah, Fifty harvests! But the corn
Is grown beside the barren main,
Is salt with sea-spray, blown and borne
Across 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 live
Here, in the twilight of the Gods,
Who weigh each gift the world can give,
And sigh and murmur, What’s the odds
So long’s you’re
happy? Nay, what Man
Finds Happiness since Time
began?
Ode of Jubilee.
By A. C. S.
Me, that have sung
and shrieked, and foamed in praise of Freedom,
Me do you
ask to sing
Parochial pomps, and waste, the wail of Jubileedom
For 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
these
I 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 to
Pale Priests or
Queens!
For you the gleam of gain, the fluttering cheque
Of Mr.
Knowles,
For me, to soar above the ruins and wreck
Of Snobs and
“Souls”!
When aflush with the dew of the dawn, and
the
Rose of the
Mystical Vision,
The spirit and soul of the Men of the
Future 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!
Jubilee Before Revolution.
By W. M.
“Tell me, 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.
FOLK SONGS
French Peasant Songs.
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 wind
To make the blossoms fall;
It wanteth but a young lover
To win me heart and all.
II.
I send my love letters
By larks on the wing;
My love sends me letters
When nightingales sing.
Without reading or writing,
Their burden we know:
They only say, “Love me,
Who love you so.”
And if they ask for me, brother,
Say I come never home,
For I have taken a strange wife
Beyond the salt sea foam.
The green grass is my bridal bed,
The black tomb my good mother,
The stones and dust within the grave
Are my sister and my brother.
BALLADS
The Young Ruthven.
The King 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 in Falkland
yaird,
Beside the Hollans green,
And there she saw the bonniest man
That ever her eyes had seen.
His coat was the Ruthven white and red,
Sae sound asleep was he
The 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 brother
Frae Padua ower 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.
“At Padua hae they learned their
leir
In the fields o’ Italie;
And they hae crossed the saut sea-faem,
And a’ for love o’ me!”
* * * *
The Queen has cuist her siller band
About 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 galliard
That 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 Beatrix
And 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 band
About her middle sma’;
And then she heard her ain gudeman
Come rowting through the ha’.
“Oh! whare,” he cried, “is
the siller band
I 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 band
About 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
neck
As 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 fine
And 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 bluid
Had gar’d Earl Gowrie dee!
The Queen O’ Spain and the Bauld Mclean.
A Ballad of the Sound of Mull.
1588.
The Queen o’
Spain had an ill gude-man.
The carle was auld and grey.
She has keeked in the glass at Hallow-een
A 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’ Hell
Or the sky on a winter night.
But last she saw the bonniest man
That 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 black
And unco blate,” she said;
“And they wear their mantles swart and side,
No the bonny green and red.”
“Oh! where shall I find 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 red
Came 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’ thee
That 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-page
That cam’ frae the black Lochow.
* * * *
The morn McLean rade forth to see
The 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.
Keith of Craigentolly.
O Keith o’
Craigentolly!
Ye sall live to rue the day
When ye brak the berried holly
Beside St. Andrew’s bay!
When Pitcullo’s kine
Card down to the brine,
And were drooned in the driving spray!
In the bower o’ Craigentolly
Is a wan and waefu’ bride,
Singing, O waly! waly!
Through the whole country side;
And a river to wade
For 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
BY
WILLIAM CLOWES AND SONS,
LIMITED,
LONDON AND BECCLES.
FOOTNOTES
[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.