by John Buchan
We worshipped at the ancient shrines:
For us the creads joined their dance
At even in the moonlit pines.
What darkling spell has rent thy skies
And turned thy heart to steel and fire,
And drawn across thy starry eyes
The curtains of a wild desire?
The Spirit Of Art
I change not. I am old as Time
And younger than the dews of mom.
These lips will sing the world’s high prime
Which blessed the toils when life was born.
I am the priestess of the flame
Which on the eternal alter springs;
Beauty and truth and joy and fame
Sleep in the shelter of my wings.
I wear the mask of age and clime,
But he who of my love is fain
Must learn my heart which knows not time,
And seek my path which fears not pain, —
Till, bruised and worn with wandering
In the dark wilds my feet have trod,
He hears the songs the Immortals sing
At even in the glades of God.
Youth II
Angel, that heart I seek to know,
I fain would make thy word my stay,
Upon thy path I yearn to go
If thy clear eyes will light the way.
But ancient loves my memory hold,
And I am weak and thou art strong;
I fear the blasts of mountain cold, —
Say if the way be dark and long.
The Spirit of Art II
On mountain lawns, in meads of spring,
With idle boys bedeck thy hair,
Or in deep greenwood loitering
Tell to thy heart the world is fair.
That joy I give, but frail and poor
Is such a boon, for youth must die;
A little day the flowers endure,
And clouds o’erride the April sky.
Upon the windy ways of life,
In dark abyss of toil and wrong,
Through storm and sun, through death and strife,
I seek the nobler spheral song.
No dulcet lute with golden strings
Can hymn the world that is to be.
Out of the jarring soul of things
I weave the eternal harmony. —
In forest deeps, in wastes of sand,
Where the cold snows outdare the skies:
Where wanderers roam uncharted lands,
And the last camp-fire flares and dies:
In sweating mart, in camp and court,
Where hopes forlorn have vanquished ease:
Where ships, intent on desperate port,
Strain through the quiet of lonely seas:
Where’er o’erborne by sense and sin,
With bruised head and aching hand,
Guarding the holy fire within,
Man dares to steel his heart and stand —
Breasting the serried spears of fate,
Broken and spent, yet joyous still,
Matching against the blind world’s hate
The stark battalions of his will: —
Whoso hath ears, to him shall fall,
When stars are hid and hopes are dim,
To hear the heavenly voices call,
And, faint and far, the cosmic hymn —
That hymn of peace when wars are done,
Of joy which breaks through tears of pain,
Of dawns beyond the westering sun,
Of skies clear shining after rain.
No sinless Edens know the song,
No Arcady of youth and light,
But, born amid the glooms of wrong,
It floats upon the glimmering height,
Where they who faced the dust and scars,
And shrank not from the fires of hate,
Can walk among the kindred stars,
Masters of Time and lords of Fate.
And haply then will youth, reborn,
Restore the world thou fain wouldst hold;
The dawn of an auguster mom
Will flush thy skies with fairy gold.
The flute of Pan in wildwood glade
Will pipe its ancient sweet refrain;
Still, still for thee through April shade
Will Venus and her sister train
Lead the old dance of spring and youth.
But thine the wiser, clearer eyes,
Which having sought the shrine of truth
And faced the unending sacrifice,
Can see the myriad ways of man,
The ecstasy, the fire, the rod,
Of shadows of the timeless plan
That broods within the mind of God.
Kin to the dust, yet throned on high,
Thy pride thy bonds, thy bonds release;
Thou see’st the Eternal passing by,
And in His Will behold’st thy peace.
Babylon
1906
How many miles to Babylon?
Three score and ten.
Can I get there by candle-light?
Yes, and back again.
We are come back from Babylon,
Out of the plains and the glare,
To the little hills of our own country
And the sting of our kindred air;
To the rickle of stones on the red rock’s edge
Which Kedron cleaves like a sword.
We will build the walls of Zion again,
To the glory of Zion’s Lord.
Now is no more of dalliance
By the reedy waters in spring,
When we sang of home, and sighed, and dreamed,
And wept on remembering.
Now we are back in our ancient hills
Out of the plains and the sun;
But before we make it a dwelling-place
There’s a wonderful lot to be done.
The walls are to build from west to east,
From Gihon to Olivet,
Waters to lead and wells to clear,
And the garden furrows to set.
From the Sheep Gate to the Fish Gate
Is a welter of mire and mess;
And southward over the common lands
Is a dragon’s wilderness.
The Courts of the Lord are a heap of dust
Where the hill winds whistle and race,
And the noble pillars of God His House
Stand in a ruined place.
In the Holy of Holies foxes lair,
And owls and night-birds build.
There’s a deal to do ere we patch it anew
As our father Solomon willed.
Now is the day of the ordered life
And the law which all obey.
We toil by rote and speak by note
And never a soul dare stray.
Ever among us a lean old man
Keepeth his watch and ward,
Crying, “The Lord hath set you free:
Prepare ye the way of the Lord.”
A goodly task we are called unto,
A task to dream on o’ nights, —
Work for Judah and Judah’s God,
Setting our land to rights;
Everything fair and all things square
And straight as a plummet string. —
Is it mortal guile, if once in a while
Our thoughts go wandering?...
We were not slaves in Babylon,
For the gate of our souls lay free,
There in that vast and sunlit land
On the edges of mystery.
Daily we wrought and daily we thought,
And we chafed not at rod and power,
For Sinim, Sabaea, and dusky Hind
Talked to us hour by hour.
The man who lives in Babylon
May poorly sup and fare,
But loves and lures from the ends of the earth
Beckon him everywhere.
&n
bsp; Next year he too may have sailed strange seas
And conquered a diadem;
For kings are as common in Babylon
As crows in Bethlehem.
Here we are bound to the common round
In a land which knows not change.
Nothing befalleth to stir the blood
Or quicken the heart to range;
Never a hope that we cannot plumb
Or a stranger visage in sight, —
At the most a sleek Samaritan
Or a ragged Amorite.
Here we are sober and staid of soul,
Working beneath the law,
Settled amid our fathers’ dust,
Seeing the hills they saw.
All things fixed and determinate,
Chiseled and squared by rule; —
Is it mortal guile once in a while
To try and escape from school?
We will go back to Babylon,
Silently one by one,
Out from the hills and the laggard brooks
To the streams that brim in the sun.
Only a moment, Lord, we crave,
To breath and listen and see. —
Then we start anew with muscle and thew
To hammer trestles for Thee.
Processional
1906
In the ancient orderly places, with a blank and orderly mind,
We sit in our green walled gardens and our com and oil increase;
Sunset nor dawn can wake us, for the face of the heavens is kind.
We light our taper at even and call our comfort peace.
Peaceful our clear horizon; calm as our sheltered days
Are the lilied meadows we dwell in, the decent highways we tread.
Duly we make our offerings, but we know not the God we praise,
For He is the God of the living, but we, His children, are dead.
I will arise and get me beyond this country of dreams,
Where all is ancient and ordered and hoar with the frost of years,
To the land where loftier mountains cradle their wilder streams,
And the fruitful earth is blessed with more bountiful smiles and tears, —
There in the home of the lightnings, where the fear of the Lord is set
free,
Where the thunderous midnights fade to the turquoise magic of the
mom,
The days of man are a vapour, blown from a shoreless sea,
A little cloud before sunrise, a cry in the void forlorn —
I am weary of men and cities and the service of little things,
Where the flamelike glories of life are shrunk to a candle’s ray.
Smite me, my God, with Thy presence, blind my eyes with Thy wings,
In the heart of Thy virgin earth show me Thy secret way!
The Herd of Farawa
1907
Losh, man! Did ever mortal see
Sic blasts o’ snaw? Ye’ll bide a wee.
Afore ye think to cross the lea,
And mount the slack!
Kin’le your pipe, and straucht your knee,
And gie’s your crack!
Hoo lang, ye spier! An unco while!
It’s seeventy-sax ‘ear came Aprile
That I came frae Auchentyle —
A bairn o’ nine;
And mony’s the dreich and dreary mile
I’ve gaed sin’ syne.
My folk were herds, sae roond the fauld
Afore I was twae towmonts auld
They fand me snowkin’, crouse and bauld
In snaw and seep —
As Dauvid was to kingdoms called,
Sae I to sheep.
I herdit first on Etterick side.
Dod, man, I mind the stound o’ pride
Gaed through my hert, when near and wide
My dowgs I ran.
Though no seeventeen till Lammastide
I walked a man.
I got a wife frae Eskdalemuir,
O’ dacent herdin’ folk, and sair
We wrocht for lang, baith late and ‘ear,
For weans cam fast,
And we were never aucht but puir
Frae first to last
Tales I could tell would gaur ye grue
O’ snawy lambin’s warstled through,
O’ drifty days, and win’s that blew
Frae norlan’ sky,
And spates thet filled the haughlands fou
And drooned the kye.
But, still and on, the life was fine,
For yon were happier days langsyne;
For gear to hain, and gear to tine
I had nae care —
Content I was wi’ what was mine.
And blithe to share.
Sic flocks ye’ll never see the day,
Nae fauncy ills to mak ye wae,
Nae fauncy dips wi’ stawsome broo,
Wad fricht the French;
We wrocht alang the auld guid way,
And fand it stench.
Nae mawkit kets, nae scabbit een,
But ilka yowe as trig’s a preen;
Sic massy tups as ne’er were seen
Sin’ Job’s allowance,
And lambs as thick on ilka green
As simmer gowans.
Whaur noo ae hirsel jimp can bide
Three hirsels were the countra’s pride,
And mony a yaird was wavin’ wide,
And floo’rs were hingin’,
Whaur noo is but the bare hillside,
And linties singin’.
And God! the men! Whaur could ye find
Sic hertsome lads, sae crouse and kind;
Sic skeel o’ sheep, sic sarious mind
At kirk and prayer —
Yet aiblins no to haud or bind
At Boswells fair?
Frae Galloway to Aiberdeen
(I mind the days as ‘twere yestreen)
I’ve had my cantrips — Lord a wheen!
But through them a’,
The fear o’ God afore my een,
I keep’t the Law.
My nieves weel hoddit in my breeks,
The Law I keep’t, and turned baith cheeks
Until the smiter, saft and meek’s
A bairn at schule;
Syne struck, and laid him bye for weeks
To learn the fule.
Frae Melrose Cauld to Linkumdoddie,
I’d fecht and drink wi’ony body;
Was there a couthy lad? then, dod, he
Sune fand his fellow,
What time the tippenny or the toddy
Had garred us mellow.
Nae wark or ploy e’er saw me shirk;
I had an airm wad fell a stirk;
I traivelled ten lang mile to kirk
In wind and snaw;
I tell ‘e, sir, frae mom to mirk,
I keep’t the Law.
Weekly we gat, and never fail,
Screeds marrowy as a pat o’ kail,
And awfu’ as the Grey Meer’s Tail
In Lammas rain,
And stey and lang as Moffatdale,
And stieve’s a stane.
Nae Gospel sowens fit for weans,
But doctrines teuch as channel-stanes;
We heard the word wi’ anxious pains,
Sarious and happy.
And half the week we piked the banes,
And fand them sappy.
Lang years aneath a man o’ God
I sat, my bible on the brod;
He wasna feared to lift the rod
And scaud the errin’;
He walked whaur our great forbears trod,
And blest his fairin’.
But noo we’ve got a baimly breed,
Whase wee-bit shilpit greetin’ screed
Soughs like a wast wind ower the heid,
Lichter than ‘oo’;
Lassies and weans, it suits their need,
No me and you!
My docht
er’s servin’ in the toun,
She gangs to hear a glaikit loon,
Whae rows his een, and twirls him roun’
Like ane dementit.
Nae word o’ Hell, nae sicht or soun’
O’ sin repentit.
But juist a weary, yammerin’ phrase
O’”Saunts” and “Heaven” and “love” and
“praise,”
Words that a grown man sudna use
God! sic a scunner!
I had to rise and gang my ways
To haud my denner.
At halesome fauts they lift their han’,
Henceforth, they cry, this new comman’,
Bide quate and doucely in the lan’
And love your brither —
This is the total end o’ man,
This and nae ither.
And that’s their creed! an owercome braw
For folks that kenna fear or fa’,
Crouse birds that on their midden craw
Nor think o’ scaith,
That keep the trimmin’ o’ the Law
And scorn the pith.
It’s no for men that nicht and day
See the Almichty’s awesome way,
And ken themselves but ripps o’ strae
Afore His wind,
And, dark or licht, maun watch and pray
His grace to find.
My forbear, hunkerin’ in a hag,
Was martyred by the laird o’ Lagg;
He dee’d afore his heid wad wag
In God’s denial.
D’ye think the folk that rant and brag
Wad thole yon trial?
Man, whiles I’d like to gang mysel
And wile auld Claverse back frae Hell;
Claverse, or maybe Tam Dalziel,
Wad stop their fleechin’;
I wager yon’s the lads to mell
And mend sic preachin’.
Whaure’er I look I find the same,
