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Poems, Scots and English cover

Poems, Scots and English

Chapter 24: The Strong Man Armed
By John Buchan
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About This Book

A mixed collection of poems presented in Lowland Scots vernacular alongside English verse, arranged to contrast rustic, conversational pieces with more formal lyrics. The poems shift among pastoral scenes, local anecdote, satirical religious and civic commentary, classical allusion, and wartime or elegiac reflection. Tones range from comic and colloquial to grave and contemplative, with recurrent attention to memory, community, landscape, and moral questioning, and an emphasis on dialectal expression woven into traditional poetic forms.

The Strong Man Armed

“Gift me guerdon and grant me grace,”
Said the Lord of the North.
“Nothing I ask thee of gear or place
Ere I get me forth.
Gift one guerdon to mine and me
For the shade and the sheen.”
······
“Ask and it shall be given unto thee,”
Said Mary the Queen.
“May I never falter the wide world through,
But stand in the gate:
May my sword bite sharp and my steel ring true
At the ford and the strait:
Bide not on bed nor dally with song
When the strife goeth keen:
This be my boon from the Gods of the Strong!”
······
“Be it so,” said the Queen.
“May I stand in the mist and the clear and the chill,
In the cycle of wars,
In the brown of the moss and the grey of the hill
With my eyes to the stars!
Gift this guerdon and grant this grace
That I bid good e’en,
The sword in the hand and the foot to the race,
The wind in my teeth and the rain in my face!”
······
“Be it so,” said the Queen.

1895