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ROBERT BUCHANAN
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ROBERT BUCHANAN
THE POET OF MODERN REVOLT
An Introduction to His Poetry
BY
ARCHIBALD STODART-WALKER
I
3 > J J J >
LONDON: GRANT RICHARDS
I HENRIETTA STREET, COVENT GARDEN
I9OI
I r • ( c c *
Edinburgh : T. and A. Constablb, (late) Printers to Her Majesty
J
M.
TO
T. K.
IN MEMORY OF READINGS FROM
THE POET AND OTHER ASSOCIA-
TIONS OF FRIENDSHIP
1-901S?
PREFACE
This book neither presumes to be of the nature
of a criticism, nor of an estimation. It was
conceived with the view of indicating the signifi-
cance of Robert Buchanan as a poet, in the
sense of the poet defined as an impassioned
philosopher. There will be found nothing of the
nature of comparative analysis.
The method pursued by the writer will soon
be evident to the most casual reader. After a
general introduction, in which a general glimpse
is taken of the poet's point of view, the various
poems are brought into consideration and dis-
played in a panoramic fashion. In following
this plan, the author obtrudes his subjectivity
as little as possible, but allows the poet to
speak for himself and suggest his own signifi-
cance and teaching. Occasionally, as in the
chapter on the Devil, it has been found ex-
pedient to review in a cursory way the histori-
cal and literary parallels concerned, and in the
viii ROBERT BUCHANAN
introductory and concluding chapters an attempt
is made to view, in general fashion, the signifi-
cance of Mr. Buchanan in the stress of con-
temporary mental and spiritual searchings, and
in face of the tendencies of modern economics.
The author has no concern in this place with
Mr. Buchanan as a man, as a publicist, as a
novelist and story-teller, or as a dramatist. He
believes that in viewing him as a poet, he is con-
cerned with the Buchanan that is of importance
in contemporary literary aspirations ; but even in
so doing, he is not bold enough, in attempting this
study of his significance, to go out of his way
to allot to his work any definite valuation. In
his humble opinion, that cannot be done, even
by the most self-confident and self-righteous of
critics. Time will not vary its claim in this case
to have the chief say in the matter.
It may be of interest to the reader to know that
this book is written by one who has sought far
different solutions for most of the problems of
life, from those that have appealed to the poet.
But even a scientific man can view with sympathy
one who seriously aspires to reach Truth, in
a fashion and in a medium foreign to his own
particular methods and teaching. Though the
PREFACE ix
mystic realism of the poet be anathema to the
point of view of the scientific purist, yet the latter
may allow himself to be carried from the solid
ground of Nature, to which the mind which builds
for aye must for ever trust, to the more shadowy
land where the dreamer loves to dwell, and see
mirrored in the eyes of the poet the vista of
newer worlds and newer hopes, without in any
way blurring the face of his philosophy.
In conclusion, the author desires to express
indebtedness to his friend Mr. James Cadenhead
for looking over the final proofs.
30 Walker Street,
Edinburgh.
CONTENTS
Chap. Page
I. GENERAL INTRODUCTION I
II. POEMS OF PROBATION (' Idylls and Legends of
Inverburn,' ' Undertones,' * London Poems ') . . 26
III. 'THE BOOK OF ORM' 62
IV. « THE DRAMA OF KINGS' 89
V. 'ST. ABE AND HIS SEVEN WIVES' AND
'WHITE ROSE AND RED' 112
VI. ' BALDER THE BEAUTIFUL ' AND ' THE
EARTHQUAKE* . 140
VII. BALLADS 166
VIII. 'THE CITY OF DREAM' 177
IX, 'THE WANDERING JEW' AND 'THE BALLAD
OF MARY THE MOTHER' 201
X. THE DEVIL ('The Outcast,' 'The Devil's Case') . 247
XI. 'THE NEW ROME' 284
XII. CONCLUSION-MR. BUCHANAN'S SIGNIFI-
CANCE 299
CHAPTER I
GENERAL INTRODUCTION
Half a decade ago, a contemporary author of dis-
tinction,^ writing without prejudice either to the
exaggeration of comedy or the painfulness of
accuracy, asked the question— ' Are there many
Buchanans whom we have all been ignorantly
confounding ? ' and proceeded forthwith to picture
various Robert Buchanans with more or less
antagonistic methods and sympathies. * There is
a poet Buchanan, Byronic and brilliant, who is only
nominally the same as Buchanan the mystic (not
to be confounded with Buchanan the materialist).
There is also Buchanan the complete letter-
writer, who is unrelated to Buchanan the author
of "Christian Romances," who, in his turn, suffers
from being identified with the Buchanan who
writes novels for the other person, and it need
hardly be said that none of these gentlemen is
Buchanan the essayist, or Buchanan the business
man. . . . They were all born in different years,
and some of them are dead. Several are men
of genius, and one or two are Philistines whom
the others dislike.'
1 Zangwill.
A
2 ROBERT BUCHANAN
The licence of a professional humorist is not to
be called in question by a critic who poaches, and
we are only grateful that we are able to discover
an essential truth underlying this *jeu d'esprit.' It
is a truth which, perhaps in a partial sense,
accounts for the fact that the brilliance of Mr.
Buchanan's genius as a poet has not received
that recognition from contemporary estimation
which it deserves, even if (by the poet him-
self) not desired or expected. It is a truth that
can hardly be disputed that the comparative
brilliance of a man's more ephemeral work may
detract from the proper estimation of what
is more ambitious in conception, and deals
more with questions that lie beyond mere
ephemerae and contemporary phases. A rapidly
acting, rapidly thinking, rapidly varying genera-
tion, desirous chiefly of food which appeases a
momentary appetite, is never particularly anxious
to trouble itself with efforts of a serious or pur-
poseful nature; especially when that work runs
directly in the teeth of accepted beliefs and tradi-
tional custom. There can also be no doubt
had Mr. Buchanan been merely a poet and less
of a man, had his actions and utterances in
other directions been less purposeful and skilful,
that probably his poetry would have had more
vogue. But the man Buchanan has always
counted as a force in the storm and stress of
contemporary opinion, and the fact that he is
like Alan Breck, 'a bonny fighter,' that he is
generally to be found on the side opposite to those
GENERAL INTRODUCTION 3
who sit in the seat of custom, and that he does
not swim by choice in the direction of popular and
evidently successful tendencies, goes far to account
for a certain hostility. Mr. Buchanan has ever
been keen to discern a possible falsehood in the
assumed infallibility of contemporary truth ; and
the average mortal, finding happiness and comfort
in the fond embrace of his own easy-souled concep-
tions of life and death, looks askance and with
little respect on one who tilts at intellectual,
moral, and social conventions that custom and
the pursuit of his own point of view have made
dear. We may respect those who tell us unwhole-
some truths, but we seldom love them ; and most
of us, however warlike physically, are either too
lazy, too tired, too stupid, or too indifferent to
take any serious heed of one who desires to carry
the war of the mind and of the soul into the
camps we have so comfortably furnished for our
own peaceful, moral, and intellectual indolence
and self-satisfaction. And however much we may
dislike Mr. Buchanan's persistency and method
of attack, none can doubt the honesty of his pur-
pose. 'Trimming,' in his eyes, is one of the
cardinal vices, and no susceptibilities — moral,
theological, or literary — which we may possess
ever deter him from speaking the truth as it
occurs to him. For compromise he has as much
liking as Mr. Morley, and granted that he is satis-
fied with his grasp of a particular truth, how-
ever far from the mark his limitations may keep
him from the ultimate truth, he feels with Whately
4 ROBERT BUCHANAN
that 'it makes all the difference in the world
whether we put truth in the first place or in the
second.' There are few of our national idols that
he has not assailed, either with the full strength
of his biggest guns, or with gentle tappings on
possible feet of clay, and his attacks have not been
when time has modified the absorbing attention
of the particular idolatry or economy concerned,
but when the soul of the people is piping hot,
at moments when universal acclamation almost
drowns the protesting voice which becomes, com-
paratively speaking, less efficacious than the tradi-
tional voice crying in the wilderness. The church
of the people, the political idols of the hour ; the
cherished religious and political notions of the
moment, rolled like sv/eet morsels under the tongue
of contemporary opinion ; the general triumphantly
crowned by title, decoration, and epistolary ode ;
the scientists, accepting and working on the prin-
ciple of the struggle for existence and the survival
of the fittest ; yes, even the very gods themselves,
are all asked to stand and deliver, and declare
whether they are not, after all, flying under false
colours or running contrary to eternal moral
truths. The nation itself, carried away, it may be,
by the sensuousness of war, by the intoxication
brought on by too long draughts at the fount of
Patriotism, by the conception of universal Anglifi-
cation, given to run riot in idolatries, ' congregat-
ing in absurdities, drifting into vanities, planning
short-sightedly, plotting dementedly, waxing out
of proportion, overblown, affected, pretentious,
GENERAL INTRODUCTION 5
bombastical, hypercritical, pedantic, fantastically
delicate' (to quote Mr. George Meredith), may
rouse the literary protest, yes, often the literary
anger, of one who at any rate has never been
troubled with any sham hate or sham affection.
Thus a combination of personal circumstances,
which though perhaps indicating a certain want
of perspective, yet reflect an undoubted spirit of
bravery upon the man who fears neither man, god,
nor devil in the assertion of his point of view, has
distracted, in no small way, the attention of con-
temporary study from the poet's more ambitious
work. It is not for us to attach the blame only
to Mr. Buchanan's detractors. In his heart hating
no man, the poet has throughout his career been
at daggers-drawn with men of all classes, creeds,
and professions, for the simple reason that, con-
comitant with the growth and maturity of his
general point of view, he has retained an almost
childish sensitiveness to criticism, and a fanatical
hatred of what he has deemed critical injustice
The result of this want of adaptability to things
as they are has been that his life has been one of
continued strife ; but in recalling this fact, let us
not forget that the men he has challenged to
literary combat and assailed with his heaviest
battalions, have not been those who were striving
with feeble wings to flutter their way up the lower
rungs of the ladder of fame, but those who had
reached, or imagined that they had reached, to the
very pinnacle of Parnassus. As he has said, * I ve
popt at vultures circling skyward, I 've made the
6 ROBERT BUCHANAN
carrion-hawks a byword, but never caused a sigh
or sob in the breast of mavis or cockrobin, nay,
many such have fed out of my hand and blest me.'
He is voluntarily, as he calls himself, * The Ishmael
of Song,' and his wandering in the wilderness no
doubt brought him more satisfaction than an
attempt to attain contemporary success by a care-
ful study of the principles of compromise, expedi-
ency, and adaptability. * You must not gather,' he
wrote, *from this that I am in revolt against my
fellow-workers; on the contrary, I love the inky
fellows immensely, when they are not spoiled
by prosperity. And frankly, I myself have not
escaped the charge of selling my birthright for a
mess of pottage; of gaining my bread by hod-
man's labour, when I might have been sitting
empty-stomached on Parnassus. Yes, I of all
men; I who after ten years of solitude should
have gone mad if I had not rushed back into
the thick of life, yet who, even there, have been
haunted by the ghosts of the solitude left behind,
and have never bowed my head to any idol or
cared for any recompense but the love of men.
My errors, however, have arisen from excess of
human sympathy, from ardour of human activity,
rather than from any great love for the loaves and
fishes. Lacking the pride of intellect, I have by
superabundant activity tried to prove myself a
man among men, not a mere "litterateur." More-
over, I have never yet discovered in myself, or in
any man, any gift which entitles me to despise the
meanest of my fellows. So I have stooped to
GENERAL INTRODUCTION 7
hodman's work occasionally, mainly because I
cannot pose in the godlike manner of your lotus-
eaters. I have not humoured my reputation. I
have thought no work undignified which did not
convert me into a Specialist or a Prig. I have
written for all men and in all moods. But the
birthright which belongs to all Poets has never
been offered by me in any market, and my man-
hood has never been stained by any sham hate
or sham affection. With a heart overflowing
with love, I have gathered to myself only hate
and misconception,— and all this for one reason
only, that I have endeavoured to avoid self-
worship, and to find some slight foothold of
human truth.'
But that is beside our purpose here. The object
we have set ourselves to accomplish is, to view in
a panoramic fashion the more noteworthy of Mr.
Buchanan's poetical works, and in doing so, to
make no attempt to criticise, estimate, dogma-
tise, or controvert, but as far as possible to allow
the poet to plead for himself, and indicate his own
poetic and philosophic significance. The task is
comparatively simple, for throughout his work
the personality of the poet, or ra,ther the mental
and spiritual evidence of it, asserts itself in no
shadowy fashion, and also because Mr. Buchanan
has from time to time supplied us with prose
notes as to his own tentatives and his own definite
outlook on life, and as to the relation of his
teaching to the whole momentous question of the
struggle for existence.
8 ROBERT BUCHANAN
For the more important of Mr. Buchanan's
poetical utterances deal with the works of God
the All-Father, as they are revealed to the con-
sciousness and elaborated in the imagination of
the poet. The conception of Nature and the
principles which underlie its workings, as being
the basis on which we view the God-Father, was
early grasped by the poet, and it is not difficult
to come to the conclusion that his relation to
Nature is more or less the relationship of nearly
all religious systems, being founded on a desire to
protect the weak against the strong. It is, in fact,
a protest against the principle of the All- Father —
the egoistic principle of the struggle for existence
and the survival of the fittest. His sympathy
with those who fall in the struggle is supple-
mented by a bitterness against Nature, for what
he deems to be useless cruelty and suffering,
which the poet fails to recognise as being at the
basis of that very evolutionary amelioration which
he would be the first to herald. The struggle of
life and decay which is the daily and hourly pro-
cess of existence, which, as has been said by
Lucretius, 'imparts to the infinite and all-per-
vading movement of Nature the interest and the
life of human passion on the grandest and widest
sphere of action, and makes each particular object
in Nature fragrant with a deeper meaning,' in-
spires no sympathy in the poet. But despite his
revolt against the tyranny of Nature the poet
is essentially an optimist ; he believes, he affirms,
he abjures negation. *I have sought only one
GENERAL INTRODUCTION 9
thing in life— the solution of its Divine meaning ;
and sometimes I think I have found it. But in an
age when the gigman assures us there are no gods,
when to believe in anything but hand-to-mouth
science and dish-and-all-swallowing politics is a
sign of intellectual decrepitude, when a man
cannot start better than by believing that all
humanity'is previous starts have been blunders,
I would rather go back to Balzac and swear by
Godhead and the Monarchy, than drift about with
nothing to swear by at all. And absolutely I
don't know whether there are gods or not. I
know only that there is Love and lofty Hope
and Divine Compassion, and that if these are
delusions, you and I and all of us are no better
than infusoria. If "this" is the only life I am to
live, the devil help me !— for if the gods cannot,
the devil must ' ; and again, ' I, for my part, who
was nourished on the husks of socialism and the
chill water of infidelity, who was born in Robert
Owen's "New Moral World," and who scarcely
heard even the name of God till at ten years of age
I went to godly Scotland, have been God-intoxi-
cated ever since I saw the mountains and the sea.
Without the sanction of the supernatural, the
certainty of the superhuman, life to me is nothing.'
I do believe in God : that He
Made Heaven and Earth, and you and me !
Nay, I believe in all the host.
Of Gods, from Jesus down to Joss,
But honour best and reverence most
That guileless God who bore the Cross.
But early enough he sees that the Calvinistic idea
10 ROBERT BUCHANAN
of God the Father as stern and inexorable is the
true one. Nature works on unmoved, unchecked
by any cry born of humanity.
Oh, Thou art pitiless ! They call Thee Light,
Law, Justice, Love ; but Thou art pitiless.
What thing of earth is precious in Thy sight.
But weary waiting on and soul's distress ?
When dost Thou come with glorious hands to bless
The good man that dies cold for lack of Thee ?
When bringst Thou garlands for our happiness ?
Whom dost Thou send but Death to set us free ?
Blood runs like wine — foul spirits sit and rule —
The weak are crushed in every street and lane —
He who is generous becomes the fool
Of all the world, and gives his life in vain.
Wert Thou as good as Thou art beautiful,
Thou couldst not bear to look upon such pain.
It is not a new cry, but it is a cry that will
eternally spring from the hearts of such as
desire a meaning for the existence of the in-
exorable law of the survival of the fittest and
the crushing of the weak. It is the helping meed,
as we have said, of most religious systems, to
step in and help the fallen, becoming in so doing
what Mr. Buchanan has somewhere said, in a
spirit of antagonism to Nature, and in consequence
to God the Father. Human misery, human aims,
human despair, and the long wailing cry of cen-
turies to a silent creator, it is these that rouse the
blood, the fire, the eloquence— yes, the disdain of
the poet, tuned, it may be, to a keynote of love
and pity for ' Him ' whom he addresses.
Helpless Thou seemest to redeem our plight —
Thy lamp shines on shut eyes— each Spirit springs
To its own stature still in Thy despite —
While haggard Nature round Thy footstool clings.
Pale, powerless, sitt'st Thou, in a Lonely Light.
^,^' GENERAL INTRODUCTION II
The poet steps in where the scientist fears, or
rather refuses, to tread. The point of view of the
scientist at this stage is one of acceptation— that
of the poet, of questioning. Science accepts the
principle, the poet asks why ? In other words, he
judges the power that made him by the power
that he possesses. The position of both is logical
enough. The evolutionary spirit regards all in-
tellectuality, all consciousness, all spiritualisation,
as dependent on sensation and a certain elabo-
ration of simple movements, and records in
arbitrary terms accordingly without proceeding
further ; the poet, regarding these as the definite
preordained dispensations of a creator, demands
an explanation.
This note continues throughout the poet's work,
ever questioning, ever believing, ever hoping on,
though at times, even in the despair of his soul,
crying, * Adonai ! Lord ! art thou a Phantom too ? '
Black is the night, but blacker my despair ;
The world is dark— I walk I know not where ;
Yet phantoms beckon still, and I pursue,
Phantoms still phantoms ! there they loom— and there,
Adonai ! Lord ! art thou a Phantom too ?
i- He ever seeks an explanation^ and with Browning
counts this life but a stuff to try the soul's strength
on — educe the man ! — * What,' he asks, * were
such faith worth if this low earth were all, if the
tangled threads of our strange human experience
were not to be gathered up again, after death's
ascendency, by the God that made man in His
likeness— yea, immortal like Himself? Without
that certain hope of a divine explanation, without
12 ROBERT BUCHANAN
that last hope of heavenly meeting and eternal
reconciliation, the life we live would be profitless
— as a book left unfinished, as a song half unsung,
as a tale just begun.'
His position to dogmatic Christianity will be
revealed as we study the many poems in which
Christ, and the Church that was founded in his
name, are incidentally considered. For the
Church the poet has no pity, little sympathy,
and often much contempt; for the Christ he has
ever human love and brotherly sympathy for
* his dream of the world's salvation.'
In a prose note appended to the 'City of
Dream,' Mr. Buchanan supplies us with a key-
note, not only to the particular poem concerned,
but to the spirit of his whole work. * To compare
small things with great ; the " City of Dream " is
an epic of modern revolt and reconciliation. My
book attempts to be for the inquiring modern
spirit what the lovely vision of Bunyan is for those
who still exist in the fairyland of dogmatic
Christianity ; but dealing as it must with elements
more complex and indeterminate, touching on
problems which to the orthodox believer do not
even exist, it is necessarily less matter of fact, and
in all probability less sufficing. Be that as it
may, the sympathetic modern will find here the
record of his own heartburnings, doubts, and
experience, though they may not have occurred to
him in the same order, or culminated in the same
way; though he may not have passed through
the Valley of Dead Gods at all, or looked with
GENERAL INTRODUCTION 13
wondering eyes on the spectre of the Inconceiv-
able ; though he may never have realised to the full,
as I have done, the existence of the City without
God, or have come at last, footsore and despairing,
to find solace and certainty on the brink of the
Celestial Ocean. To the orthodox believer in
Christianity there is but one righteous Book,
the Old and New Testaments. To the present
writer all books are righteous which, in one way or
another, help the soul on its heavenward pilgrim-
age, sound the depths of spiritual speculation, and
habituate the ear of conscience to the harmonies
of some brighter and some more perfect life.'
From what we have indicated, it will be gathered
at once that the poet's work is not to satisfy those
who * seek their trim, poetic academe.'
I do not sing aloud in measured tone
Of those fair paths the easy-soul'd pursue.
That he leaves to those who reflect the tendencies
of their age, to the poets who mirror the evident
present alone, rather than discern the gigantic
problems which are growing in the womb of
the future. To those who, like the late Mr.
Huxley, would confine writers of 'merely im-
aginative literature,' to singing of what they see,
or have been taught to see, in the more sensuous
side of Nature, Mr. Buchanan must appear the
first of heretics. He has the damning quality of
being something of a philosopher, not of the
academic type, nor of the type that speaks in
terms of common men with common experience.
14 ROBERT BUCHANAN
He has insight, like all poets and seers. * He is
indeed a student as other students are (and a
philosopher as other philosophers are), but he is
emphatically the student and philosopher who sees,
who feels, who sings ; he is,' as he has described
Mrs. Browning, * unique in these days— specifically
a poet — one troubled by the great mystery of life,
and finding no speech adequate but song.' As we
shall find later, nothing that affects the welfare
and interest of humanity, nothing that touches on
the drama of life, on the world's tragedies and
comedies — not even the terrific commonplaces and
sublime vulgarities of great cities— nothing that
affects his spiritual and mental yearnings, aspira-
tions, and depressions, is outside the spiritualising,
idealising, and philosophising of the poet. The
hopelessness of the struggle for existence, yet
the grandeur of struggling at all; the tyranny
of circumstance, with its underlying pathos ; the
fretting, the fever, the joy, the glamour, the
revelations of life ; the mystery, the meaning, the
end of life ; the dreams of the dreamers, the song
of the singers, the hands of the helpers ; the cries
for life, the cries for death ; the stillness of God,
and the human eyes of Christ ; the passions and the
envy ; the compassion and the sympathy brought
on earth by faith in revealed religion ; all are seen
and sung and taught in the language of the poet
or seer. * It may safely be affirmed that no
subject is unfit for poetic treatment which can be
spiritualised to musical form of harmonious and
natural numbers.' Not that Mr. Buchanan is
GENERAL INTRODUCTION 15
blind as to the dignity of the revelation. * Accord-
ing to the dignity of the revelation will be the rank
of the poet or seer in the temple. The epic poet
is great because his matter is great in the first
place, and because he has not fallen below the
level of his matter. The dramatist is great by his
truth to individual character not his own, and his
power of presenting that truth while spiritualis-
ing into definite form and meaning some vague
situation in the sphere of actual or ideal life. The
lyric poet owes his might to the personal char-
acter of the emotion aroused by his vision. Then,
there are ranks within ranks. Not an eye in the
throng, however, but has some object of its own,
and some peculiar sensitiveness to light, form,
colour. To Milton, a prospect of heavenly vistas,
where stately figures walk and cast no shade ; but
to Pope (a seer, though low down in the ranks),
the pattern of teacups, and the peeping of clocked
stockings under farthingales. While the rouge
on the cheek of modern love betrays itself to the
languid yet keen eyes of Alfred de Musset,
Robert Browning is proclaiming the depths of
tender beauty underlying modern love and its
rouge ; each is a seer, and each is true, only one
sees a truth beyond the other truth. After
Wordsworth has penetrated with solemn-sounding
footfall into the aisle of the Temple, David Gray
follows, and utters a faint cry of beautiful yearning
as he dies upon the threshold.*
Mr. Buchanan, as we have said, has essayed
many themes, but there can be no doubt that his
l6 ROBERT BUCHANAN
latter work, dealing boldly with questions which
touch the very heart of religions and theologies, is
that upon which the uniqueness and distinction of
his position must depend. Over thirty years ago,
when he sang only of Pan and his brother gods,
of Scottish village life, and * of the quiet wonders
of the unsung city streets,' he was concerned with
the fact of the scantiness of the artistic treatment
of morality and religion in modern art. * Religion,'
says Goethe, * stands in the same relation to art
as any other of the higher interests of life. It is
a subject, and its rights are those of all other
subjects.' * Yet,' adds Mr. Buchanan, ' how scantily
are morality and religion represented in modern
art! Why, for instance, is our Christianity for-
gotten as a " subject " ? Where is the great poem,
where the noble music built on that wondrous
theme? Milton, with all his power, is academic,
not modern, and with the exception of a few faint
utterances of Wordsworth, all our other religious
poetry is conventional and inartistic. We hear,
indeed, the metallic periods of the didactic teacher,
and the feeble wail of the religious enthusiast, but
seldom, indeed, are our nobler intellectual and
spiritual strivings phrased into perfect song. The
reticence of false culture steals over the life of
many who might instruct us deeply by their expe-
rience, who, if they do speak, are moved by the
retrograde spirit of another civilisation, and use
the formal periods of an alien tongue. Why, in the
name of our new gods, are we still to be bound by
the fetters of Prometheus ? We are, if not quite
GENERAL INTRODUCTION 17
Celts, more Celts than Greeks, and, thank Heaven,
not altogether an intellectual nation. . . . We are
a modern people, slightly barbaric in matters of
art ; but our natures have a glow of emotion quite
unknown to the frigid spirit of Athenian inquiry.
There is a great emotional and spiritual life yet
unrepresented, there are rude forces not yet
brought into play, but all of which must sooner or
later have their place in art ; and the indigenous
product of our experience, however inferior to
other civilisations, is yet vastly superior to all
exotics grafted on the weakened trunk of what
was once a noble tree.'
From this we cannot but draw the inference
that in these early days the poet had in view
not only ' The Book of Orm ' and * The City of
Dream,' but also the conception of 'The Wander-
ing Jew ' and 'The Ballad of Mary the Mother.'
Dealing with Mr. Buchanan's general method
throughout his work, if one can speak of a general
method, one might seize hold of his own words and
dwell on the ' Mystic Realism ' that pervades the
whole. In a prose note attached to the 'Drama
of Kings,' the poet says: 'In the present work,
and in the works which have preceded it from the
same pen ("Undertones," "Inverburn," "London
Poems," and "The Book of Orm "), an attempt is
made to combine two qualities which the modern
mind is accustomed to regard apart — reality and
mystery, earthliness and spirituality. The writer
dropped into a world a few years ago like a being
fallen from another planet. His first impression
B
i8 ROBERT BUCHANAN
was one of surprise and awe: he stood and
wondered, and here on the same spot he stands
and wonders still. What is nearest to him seems
so sublime, unaccountable, and inexhaustible, and
occasionally, indeed, so droll and odd, that he has
never ceased to regard it with all the eyes of his
soul from that day to this. Others may go to
the mountain-tops and interrogate the spheres.
Wiser men may peruse the Past and see there,
afar away, the dreamy poetry for which the spirit
eternally yearns. More aquiescent men may
look heavenward, slowly and strangely losing the
habit of earthly perception altogether. With all
these, with all who love beauty near or afar away,
in any shape or form, abide the twofold blessing
of reverence and love. But the Mystic is occupied
hopelessly with what immediately surrounds him.
Minuter examination only leads to extreme joy
and wonder. To him this ever-present reality is
the only mystery, and in its mystery lies its sub-
lime fascination and beauty. Only what is most
real and visible and certain is marvellous, and
only that which is marvellous has the least
fascination. What he sees may be seen by every
soul under the sun, for it is the soul's own reflec-
tion in the river of life glassed to a mirror by its
own speed. . . . He looks on into the eyes nearest
to him, and ah ! what distance does he not find
there? Approaching each creature as ever from
the mystic side, he becomes, in spite of himself,
an optimist. The moment he seizes for examina-
tion is the divine moment when the creature
GENERAL INTRODUCTION 19
under examination — be it Buonaparte, Bismarck,
or "Barbara Gray"— is at its highest and best,
whether that "best" be intellectual beatification
or the simple vicarious instinct which merges in
the identity of another. He sees the nature spiri-
tualised, in the dim, strange light of whatever
soul the creature possesses. This light is often
very dim indeed, very doubtful— so doubtful that
its very existence is denied by non-mystic men
whose musings assume the purely spiritual and
unimaginative form. But be the teaching true or
false, be the light born in the subject examined,
or in the human sentiment that broods over it,
this mystic approach to the creature at his
highest point of spiritualisation, this mode of
approach which seems unnatural to many be-
cause it involves the most minute enumeration
of details and the most careful display of the
very facts which artists try most to conceal, is
the only procedure possible to the present writer.
. . . Imagination is not, as some seem to imply,
the power of conjuring up the remote and un-
knowable, but the gift of realising correctly in
correct images the truth of things as they are
and ever have been. He who can see no poetry
in his own time is a very unimaginative person.
The truly imaginative being is he who carries
his own artistic distance with him, and sees
the mighty myths of life, vivid yet afar off,
glorified by the truth which is Eternal. How
many people can walk out on a starry night, or
sit by the side of the sea, unmoved.^ But let
20 ROBERT BUCHANAN
a comet appear, or a star shoot, and they ex-
claim, "How beautiful!" Let a whale rise up
in the water and roar, and they think **How
wonderful are the works of God ! " These are
the people, and their name is legion, who lack
as yet the consecrating gleam of the imagina-
tion. As for the mystic, he needs neither a
comet nor a whale to fill his soul with a sense
of the wonderful ; he needs still less the dark
vistas of tradition or the archaic scenery of ob-
scure periods. Go where he may, his path swarms
with poetic forms. Faces! how they haunt him
with their weird and divine significance! What
is nearest seems of all the most sublime and un-
accountable. ... In "The Drama of Kings " etc.,
one view is adopted ; not the point of view of
the satirist, nor of the historian, but that of the
realistic mystic, who, seeking to penetrate deepest
of all into the soul, and to represent the soul's best
and finest mood, seizes that moment when the
spiritual or emotional nature is most quickened by
sorrow or by self-sacrifice, by victory or by defeat.'
And it will be seen as we proceed further that
this mystic realism is never lost sight of. To
the very last note of ' The New Rome ' it is the
pervading spirit ; and the imaginative spirit is
strongest and best when it touches those * nearest
realities ' of which the poet speaks.
Even in the unsung city's streets
Seem'd quiet wonders meet for serious song,
Truth hard to phrase and render musical.
For ah ! the weariness and weight of tears,
The crying out to God, the wish for slumber,
They lay so deep, so deep ! God heard them all
GENERAL INTRODUCTION 21
He set them unto music of His own ;
But easier far the task to sing of kings,
Or weave weird ballads where the moon-dew glistens,
Than body forth this life in beauteous sound.
This mystic realism of the poet reaches its
supreme moment perhaps in the poem 'The
Man Accurst,' the Envoi to 'The Book of Orm,'
and it is here that by the poet's own confession
the personal keynote is most definitely struck.
The same spirit is at work in *The Wandering
Jew,' that epos of the world's despair, in a manner
haunting to the extreme.
For lo ! I voice to you a mystic thing
Whose darkness is as full of starry gleams
As is a tropic light ; in your dreams
This thing shall haunt you and become a sound
Of friendship in still places, and around
Your lives this thing shall deepen and impart
A music to the trouble of the heart,
So that perchance, upon some gracious day,
You may bethink you of the song, and pray
That God may bless the singer for your sake !
And in the core of the whole work of the poet
lies a great human sympathy, not a vague,
altruistic universality of feeling, academic and
cold, but the sympathy of a man with gnawing
fears, aspiring hopes, and common temptations
for men with like experiences. The gift of tears
never fails him: tears, and a note of hope and
eternal reconciliation for the meanest. The sense
of the tragedy of common life is ever a pressing
load, and the faces in the street— the faces of the
lost, faces sacred on the altar of infamy and lust —
burn into his soul.
22 ROBERT BUCHANAN
These are the Lost, waifs which from wave to wave
Drift lone, while yonder on the yellow strand
The laughing children run from cave to cave
And happy lovers wander hand in hand.
The sun shines yonder on the green hillside,
The bright spire points to Heaven through leafy trees,
The Maiden wears the glory of a Bride,
The bright babe crows on the young Mother's knees.
O happy Bride ! O happy Mother ! born
To inherit all the light that life can give.
Here ye these voices out of depths forlorn ?
Know ye these Lost, who die that ye may live f
Is not the last line the discovery, or at least the
first truly poetical expression, of a great social
truth? Down the deep waters of Death and
Despair the poet wanders, finding the foul upas-
trees of butcheries and lust casting their shadow,
dark and dread, on the Cross of Calvary ; until, in
the summit of his despair, in a moment of great
soul and heart burning, after giving vent to
Philippics, gorgeous in the splendour of their
rhetoric, against a Church which for ever had
kept the Christ from its doors, he sentences Christ
through the voice of the spirit of mankind to walk
for ever through the world with all the woes of
earth upon his head, searching vainly for a Father
God.
What is asked is the general tenor of the
poet's song ?
I do not sing for maidens. They are roses
Blowing along the pathway I pursue :
No sweeter things the wondrous world discloses,
And they are tender as the morning dew.
Blessed be maids and children : day and night
Their holy scent is with me as I write.
GENERAL INTRODUCTION 23
I do not singf aloud in measured tone
Of those fair paths the easy-soul'd pursue ;
Nor do I sing for Lazarus alone,
I sing for Dives and the Devil too.
Ah, would the feeble songs I sing might swell
As high as Heaven and as deep as Hell !
I sing of the stain'd outcast at Love's feet-
Love with his wild eyes on the evening light ;
I sing of sad lives trampled down like wheat
Under the heel of Lust, in Love's despite ;
I glean behind those wretched shapes ye see
In the cold harvest-fields of Infamy.
I sing of deathbeds (let no man rejoice
Till that last piteous touch of all is given !) ;
I sing of Death and Life with equal voice,
Heaven watching Hell and Hell illumed by Heaven.
I have gone deep, far down the infernal stair —
And seen the heirs of Heaven arising there !
And yet behind all this sense of the blackness,
despair, and apparent injustice of living, the poet is
at heart an optimist. ' To every Soul beneath the
sun wide open lies a Heaven of Love.' Vicarious
love and suffering- are the refining powers, the very
salvation of man, and at the end of all things
* Man shall arise Lord of all things that be. Last
of the Gods, and Heir of all things free.' While
the bloodhounds of war are loose, his cry is
a despairing one, his song the song of the
slain, and his place by the mighty bivouac of the
dead ; while the scientist pursues his search
for truth in the hope of adding one more drop
to the great flood of human emancipation, he
sings only the song of the beasts which are to
him the martyrs in this evidence of the struggle
for existence ; but in the long-run he knows,
that over all a beckoning hand gleams from the
24 ROBERT BUCHANAN
lattices of heaven — however vague and untranslat-
able the beckon may be.
Pest on these dreary, dolent airs !
Confound these funeral pomps and poses !
Is Life's, Dyspepsia's, and Despair's,
And Love's complexion all chlorosis ?
A lie ! here 's Health and Mirth and Song-,
The World still laug-hs and g-oes a-Maying.
The dismal, doleful, droning Throng
Are only smuts in sunshine playing !
Writing to Charles Warren Stoddard, he said :
* Let us share this secret between us— that though
the Gods may be dead, as men say, their wraiths
still haunt the earth. Even here in this Babylon,
this London, they walk nightly and fulfil their
ghostly ministrations. Pan flits through the
darkness of Whitechapel ; under the cupola of St.
Paul's, I have seen Apollo face to face. Aphro-
dite has pillowed my head upon her naked breast ;
and as for the weary, world-worn God of Galilee,
he is everywhere, still pleading for us, still wonder-
ing that his Father shuts himself away. Was not
our Elder Brother out yonder on the Pacific with
Father Damien, and is he not here incarnate
whenever the bread of charity is broken? The
last word of the Soul is not yet said. When it is
uttered in the midst of this Belshazzar's Feast of
modern Culture, both Gods and Poets will live
again.'
In more or less of a systematic way, we now
propose to deal with the various poetical works of
Mr. Buchanan, seeing him more clearly in the
lights we have indicated, and viewing him in other
GENERAL INTRODUCTION 25
garbs as satirist, humorist, and lyrist. For the
bard can kick his heels with the merriest of us,
whether inspired by Shon Maclean, Vander-
decken, or instigated by the Devil incarnate
himself. The latter gentleman, with Mr. Buchanan
as his sartorial architect, may not be recognised
by those who have studied him in the pictures of
Milton, Goethe, or Moliere, but he certainly is a
living creature, gifted with human eyes and
human sympathies. Has not Mr. Buchanan been
told that Hell is now the only place where any-
body believes in Heaven ?
CHAPTER II
POEMS OF PROBATION
Three volumes, published between the ages of
twenty - two and twenty - five, are what Mr.
Buchanan has himself described as his ' Poems
of Probation,' wherein ' I have fairly hinted what
I am trying to assimilate in life and thought.*
'Undertones,' dedicated to John Westland Mar-
ston, was published in 1863 ; * Idylls and Legends
of Inverburn,' in 1865 ; and * London Poems,' with
a note dedicatory to W. Hep worth Dixon, in 1866.
The biographical details which surround the
publication of these volumes with more than a
pathetic halo have been supplied to us on more
than one occasion by the poet. Two years after
the publication of ' London Poems,' a small volume
entitled * David Gray, and other Essays,' left Mr.
Buchanan's hands. To lovers of the poet's work
there is much that is touched with sacredness in
this volume ; and in the biographical notice of David
Gray, 'the young poet of the Luggie,' one learns
of the dismal material outlook that met the two
friends as they walked * in the spring, at the golden
gates of morning.' And directly enough for all
26
POEMS OF PROBATION 27
purposes of fidelity, two of these volumes of poems
are laid with almost breaking heart on the cairn
of the dead friend. The prologue *To David in
Heaven ' of the ' Undertones,' and * Poet Andrew '
in 'The Idylls and Legends'— in which, in the
metaphor and language of the imaginative writer,
the poet takes a backward glance over the life
and work of the dead friend— are both tributes to
David Gray. To the former must be ascribed
more than an ordinate place in the roll of Mr.
Buchanan's personal notes. There is so much of
the poet's own tentatives and aspirations, and so
sure a sign of that splendid fidelity to friendship
which has always been a characteristic of Mr.
Buchanan's life, that we need not trouble our-
selves with apologies for rather voluminous
quotations. Of poems written *In Memoriam,'
though not elaborately analytical like the work
of the late Laureate, nor possessing the academic
stateliness of *Lycidas,' in its personal warmth,
its unrestrained yet simple confessions of love, its
unfettered avowal of the doubts and fears and
hopes which meet the searcher after truth at the
very threshold of the outlook, it is unequalled.
An occasional halt, an occasional line written in
despite of ' mere ' literature, does not detract from
the sincerity, literary and personal, of the young
poet's first published lines :
Lo ! the slow moon foaming
Thro' fleecy mists of gloaming-,
Furrowing with pearly edge the jewel-powder'd sky !
Lo, the bridge moss-laden,
Arch'd hke foot of maiden,
And on the bridge, in silence, looking upward, you and I !
28 ROBERT BUCHANAN
Lo, the pleasant season
Of reaping and of mowing—
The foam-fringed moon above— beneath, the river duskily flowing !
Do I dream, I wonder?
As, sitting sadly under
A lonely roof in London, thro' the grim square pane I gaze ?
Here of you I ponder,
In a dream, and yonder
The still streets seem to stir and breathe beneath the white moon's
rays.
By the vision cherish'd,
By the dark hope braved.
Do I but dream a hopeless dream, in the city that slew you, David ?
• •■••••
Poet gentle-hearted,
Are you then departed,
And have you ceased to dream the dream we loved of old so well ?
Has the deeply cherish'd
Aspiration perish'd.
And are you happy, David, in that heaven where you dwell ?
Have you found the secret
We, so wildly, sought for,
Is your young soul enswath'd, at last, in the singing robes you
fought for ?
The meaning, the Divine meaning of life and
living action, was in these younger, as in these
latter, days all that he sought :
Whether it be bootless.
Profitless and fruitless —
The weary aching upward strife to heights we cannot reach ;
and again he cries :
Has the strife no ending ?
Has the song no meaning ?
And touching reverently the volume of the dead
poet-friend, he continues^:
The aching and the yearning,
The hollow, undiscerning,
Uplooking want I still retain, darken the leaves I touch—
POEMS OF PROBATION 29
Pale promise, with sad sweetness
Solemnising incompleteness,
But ah, you knew so little then— and now you know so much !
By the vision cherish'd.
By the dark hope braved,
Have you, in heaven, shamed the song, by a loftier music, David ?
Tho' the world could turn from you.
This, at least, I learn from you :
Beauty and Truth, tho' never found, are worthy to be sought,
The singer, upward-springing.
Is grander than his singing.
And tranquil self-sufficing joy illumes the dark of thought.
This, at least, you teach me,
In a revelation :
That gods still snatch, as worthy death, the soul in its aspiration.
Noble thought produces
Noble ends and uses.
Noble hopes are part of Hope wherever she may be.
Noble thought enhances
Life and all its chances,
And noble self is noble song— all this I learn from thee !
And I learn, moreover,
'Mid the city's strife too.
That such faint song as sweetens Death can sweeten the singer's
life too !
• ••••••
But ah, that pale moon foaming
Thro' fleecy mists of gloaming.
Furrowing with pearly edge the jewel-powder'd sky,
And ah, the days departed
With your friendship gentle-hearted,
And ah, the dream we dreamt that night, together, you and I !
Is it fashion'd wisely.
To help us or to blend us,
That at each height we gain we turn, and behold a heaven behind
us?
"We have quoted at some length, for it seems to
us that here, ' in the spring, at the golden gates of
morning,' we catch a clear note of the upward
striving and the yearning for a solution which is
never absent from Mr. Buchanan's more ambitious
30 ROBERT BUCHANAN
work. It is a sincere note throughout, and never
sincerer than when it touches on the personal
relationship of the poets. It is not a subject for
the cold pen of one whose claim is only that of
sympathy ; but it cannot be released from our
passing observation, that never was poet more
faithful to heart ties. His friend, his wife, his
father, his mother, to these sacred ties he ever
remained faithful, and the heart and the voice
never tire of pouring forth some personal tribute,
either to the
Father on earth for whom I've wept bereaven,i
Father more dear than any father in heaven ;
to his mother:
One deathless flame, one holy name,
One light that shines where'er I move,
Are thine, out of whose life I came,
Through whom I hve and love ;
or his wife :
So, sweetheart, I have given unto thee
Not only such poor song as here I twine,
But Hope, Ambition, all of mine or me.
My flesh and blood and more, my soul divine.
Take all, take all.
The three volumes which have their right place
in our consideration at present, although not
revealing in any marked degree the light of
mysticism and of mystic realism that make
'The Book of Orm,' 'The City of Dream,' and
'The Wandering Jew' so distinctive in modern
imaginative literature, are of value not only as
1 A word which, despite much criticism, the poet refused to
surrender.
POEMS OF PROBATION 31
recording the first-fruits of what the poet was
assimilating from Nature without and God
within, but as the first links of a chain of ideas
unbroken in sequence. From the proem to David
Gray in 'Undertones,' published in 1863, to the
last line of ' The New Rome,' published in 1899,
the same tendencies are at work, the same views
are conceived, though evolved and elaborated
under the growth of the poet's personality, and
the variation of environment and circumstance.
We have the same yearning, the same hopes,
virtually the same beliefs :
I end as I began,
I think as first I thought.
Though imbued by early training with the classic
spirit, Mr. Buchanan does not often wander in
the garden of Academus, nor has he much parley
with the reader's soul through the medium of the
poetic Academe. 'Care for statuesque woes and
nude intellectualities moving on a background
of antique landscape' has never troubled Mr.
Buchanan much. But in his article entitled
from *iEschylus to Victor Hugo,' it is easy to
comprehend the depth — rather width — of his
classical skill, and in his first volume he essays
the use of his Celtic imagination to flights in
Arcady and in other groves where the Pagan
gods dwell, with Pan, with Polypheme, Selene,
and even with Ades, King of Hell. In 'Under-
tones,' if we have nothing else, we have atmo-
sphere and drama. No one but a dramatist
32 ROBERT BUCHANAN
could have written * Polypheme's Passion,' nor even
* Pygmalion the Sculptor,' and seldom if ever have
we come nearer to feeling the glow, the spirit, and
the abandon of paganism than in the poem called
' Pan,' and in the poetical ' jeu d'esprit ' * The Satyr ' ;
and if the volume, with all its fine workmanship
and dramatic power, was justified by nothing else,
we would dare to quote a short effort, 'Antony
in Arms,' as combining dramatic action, char-
acterisation, and truth to literary and historic
tradition unequalled in poems of the kind. We
give it in full.
ANTONY IN ARMS.
Lo, we are side by side !— One dark arm furls
Around me like a serpent warm and bare ;
The other, hfted 'mid a gleam of pearls,
Holds a full golden goblet in the air :
Her face is shining through her cloudy curls
With Ught that makes me drunken unaware,
And with my chin upon my breast I smile
Upon her, darkening inward all the while.
And thro' the chamber curtains, backward roll'd
By spicy winds that fan my fever'd head,
I see a sandy flat slope yellow as gold
To the brown banks of Nilus wrinkling red
In the slow sunset ; and mine eyes behold
The West, low down beyond the river's bed,
Grow sullen, ribb'd with many a brazen bar,
Under the white smile of the Cyprian star.
A bitter Roman vision floateth black
Before me, in my dizzy brain's despite ;
The Roman armour brindles on my back.
My swelling nostrils drink the fumes of fight :
But then, she smiles upon me ! — and I lack
The warrior will that frowns on lewd delight,
And, passionately proud and desolate,
I smile an answer to the joy I hate.
POEMS OF PROBATION 33
Joy coming uninvoked, asleep, awake, '
Makes sunshine on the grave of buried powers ; jj
Ofttimes I wholly loathe her for the sake <
Of manhood slipt away in easeful hours :
But from her lips mild words and kisses break, j
Till I am like a ruin mock'd with flowers ; i
I think of Honour's face— then turn to hers— j
Dark, like the splendid shame that she confers.
Lo, how her dark arm holds me ! — I am bound
By the soft touch of fingers light as leaves :
I drag my face aside, but at the sound
Of her low voice I turn— and she perceives
The cloud of Rome upon my face, and round
My neck she twines her odorous arms and grieves.
Shedding upon a heart as soft as they
Tears 'tis a hero's task to kiss away !
And then she loosens from me, trembling still
Like a bright throbbing robe, and bids me ' go ! '—
When pearly tears her drooping eyelids fill.
And her swart beauty whitens into snow ;
And lost to use of hfe and hope and will,
I gaze upon her with a warrior's woe,
And turn, and watch her sidelong in annoy-
Then snatch her to me, flush'd with shame and joy !
Once more, O Rome ! I would be son of thine —
This constant prayer my chain'd soul ever saith —
I thirst for honourable end — I pine
Not thus to kiss away my mortal breath.
But comfort such as this may not be mine —
I cannot even die a Roman death :
I seek a Roman's grave, a Roman's rest-
But, dying, I would die upon her breast !
In 'Pan' the 'white-haired, low-lidded, gentle,
aged god' sings forth, in his most gloriously
egoistic way, his own perfection and his own
powers. The poem is on the whole the most
ambitious and the most successful in the volume.
To use conventional terms, we might say that
the spirit of the poem is maintained throughout,
the imagination of the poet seldom flags, and
c
34 ROBERT BUCHANAN
altogether there breathes a joy of living which
contrasts strangely with our own Western gloom,
born under newer gods and newer civilisations.
From this pagan joy of life we can well ap-
preciate the fact that in 'The Wandering Jew'
the poet puts into the mouth of the accuser the
charge that, at the birth of the new religion,
All other g-entle gods that g-ladden'd man
Faded — fled away ! the priests of Pan
That, singing by Arcadian rivers, rear'd
Their flowery altars, wept and disappear'd ;
And men forgot the fields and the sweet light,
Joy, and all wonders of the day and night,
All splendours of the sense, all happy things,
Art, and the happy Muse's ministerings.
Forgot that radiant house of flesh divine
Wherein each soul is shut as in a shrine ;
and also understand why in 'Pan at Hampton
Court' in 'The Earthquake' there is this song
(dramatic of course in its conception and utter-
ance) :
Oh, who will worship the great god Pan
Here in the streets with me ?
Sad and tearful and weary and wan
Is the god who died on the tree ;
But Pan is under and Dian above.
Though the dead god cannot see,
And the merry music of youth and love
Returns eternallie !
And though we digress, it is wise that we should
recognise from the first that to the poet the human
body is no ' lazar-house of flesh.' It is the temple
in which our Godhood dwells. The essence of God
is viewed through our own souls. Human pas-
sions, human desires, human aspirations are not
the evidences of our birth as miserable sinners, but
POEMS OF PROBATION 35
are the sacred fires of Nature. Lust, treacheries,
and butcheries are born of the conventional devil
certainly, but to confuse human passions and
desires, born of a Godhead, with unholy lust is,
in the mind of the poet, to put a premium on
the latter.
Although one can hardly speak of 'splendid
imagery ' in ' Undertones,' and although we miss
the mystic weirdness of the maturer work of the
poet, there is much in 'Pan' and other poems
in this volume which essays picturesqueness and
beauty of imagery in a language which is of the
simplest.
When the cool aspen-fingers of the Rain
Feel for the eyelids of the earth in spring-,
When Thunder, waving wings,
Groans, crouching from your lightning spears, and then
Springs at your lofty silence with a shriek !
The following two extracts will give some idea
of Mr. Buchanan's method :
I, Pan, with ancient and dejected head
Nodding above its image in the pool,
And large limbs stretch'd their length on shadowy banks,
Did breathe such weird and awful ravishment,
Such symmetry of sadness and sweet sound,
Such murmurs of deep boughs and hollow cells,
That neither bright Apollo's hair-strung lute.
Nor Herd's queenly tongue when her red lips
Flutter to intercession of love-thoughts
Throned in the counsel-keeping eyes of Zeus,
Nor airs from heaven, blow sweetlier. Hear me, gods
Behind her veil of azure, Artemis
Turn'd pale and listen'd ; mountains, woods, and streams
And every mute and living thing therein,
Marvell'd, and hush'd themselves to hear the end —
Yea, far away, the fringe of the green sea
Caught the faint sound, and with a deeper moan
Rounded the pebbles on the shadowy shore.
36 ROBERT BUCHANAN
Whence, in the season of the pensive eve,
The earth plumes down her weary, weary wings ;
The Hours, each frozen in his mazy dance,
Look scared upon the stars and seem to stand
Stone-still, like chisell'd ang-els mocking- Time ;
And woods and streams and mountains, beasts and birds,
And serious hearts of purbhnd men, are hush'd ;
While music sweeter far than any dream
Floats from the far-off silence, where I sit
Wondrously wov'n about with forest boughs —
Through which the moon peeps faintly, on whose leaves
The unseen stars sprinkle a diamond dew—
And shadow'd in some water that not flows.
But, pausing, spreads dark waves as smooth as oil \
To listen ! f
And
Wherefore, ye gods, with this my prophecy
I sadden those sweet sounds I pipe unseen.
From dimly lonely places float the sounds
To haunt the regions of the homeless air.
Whatever changeful season ye vouchsafe
To all broad worlds which, hearing, whisper, ' Pan ! '
And thence they reach the hearts of lonely men,
Who wearily bear the burthen and are pain'd
To utterance of fond prophetic song.
Who singing smile, because the song is sweet,
Who die, because they cannot sing the end.
Of other poems, the metre of ' The Satyr ' rattles
on like a highland burn after rain, and is rich with
Pagan colour and the joy of living. * The dews and
rains mingle in his blood, the wind stirs his veins
with the leaves of the wood, he drinks strength
from the sun ' :
The changes of earth.
Water, air, ever stirring.
Disturb me, conferring
My sadness or mirth.
' Polypheme's Passion ' is, considered dramatically,
a fine piece of art, the poetic protests of love
which the Cyclops conceives for Galatea, 'she
POEMS OF PROBATION 37
alone who is worthy of the conversation and
serious consideration of such a god as he,' being
punctuated by the alternating sceptical and
admiring Silenus. Here is a description of
Bacchus :
I know no thing more beautiful than he
When, dripping odours cool,
Deep-purpled, like a honey-bosom'd flower
For which the red mouth buzzes like a bee.
He bursts from thy deep caverns gushingly.
And throws his pleasure round him in a shower,
And sparkles, sparkles, like the eyes that see,
In sunshine, murmuring for very glee.
And bursting beaded bubbles until sour
Lips tremble into moist anticipation
Of his rich exultation !
And here is Galatea :
Her voice hath gentle sweetness, borrowed
From soft tide-lispings on the pebbly sand,
'Tis Hke the brooding doves in junipers ;
White as a shell of ocean is her hand.
Wherein, with rosy light, the pink blood stirs !
Her hair excels the fruitage of the beech
Wherein the sun runs liquid gleam on gleam ;
Her breasts are like two foaming bowls of cream,
A red straw-berry in the midst of each !
And the soft gold-down on her silken chin
Is like the under side of a ripe peach —
A dimple dipping honeyly therein !
Speaking of Love's influence on his heart, Poly-
pheme says :
' My heart is . • .
It is as mild as patient flocks in fold.
I am as lonely as the snowy peak
Of Dardanos, and, like an eagle. Love
Stoops o'er me, helpless, from its eyrie above.
And grasps that lamb, my Soul, within its beak.
The imagery is sustained throughout the volume,
1901S7
38 ROBERT BUCHANAN
and occasionally the poet rises to heights of great
dignity, as, for instance, in the stately periods
addressed by Penelope to her absent Ulysses,
commencing :
Whither, Ulysses, whither dost thou roam,
Roll'd round with wind-led waves that render dark
The smoothly-spinning circle of the sea ?
Lo ! Troy has fallen, fallen like a tower,
And the mild sun of a less glorious day
Gleams faintly on its ruins.
• ■••••
And all the air is hollow of my joy. '(
But thy deep strength is in the solemn dawn
And thy proud step is in the plumed noon,
And thy grave voice is in the whispering eve.
• • • • •
Behold, now I am mock'd !— Suspicion
Mumbles my name between his toothless gums ;
• ••••■
And when the winds
Swoop to the waves and lift them by the hair.
And the long storm-roar gathers, on my knees
I pray for thee. Lo ! even now, the deep
Is garrulous of thy vessel tempest-tost.
My very heart has grown a timid mouse.
Peeping out, fearful, when the house is still.
Breathless I listen thro' the breathless dark.
And hear the cock counting the leaden hours.
And, in the pauses of his cry, the deep
Swings on the flat sand with a hollow clang ;
And, pale and burning-eyed, I fall asleep
When, with wild hair, across the wrinkled wave
Stares the sick Dawn that brings thee not to me.'
In * Pygmalion the Sculptor' we have a dramatic
poem full of much of the purple light, the glow,
the never-ending gleam of a daring imagination.
The imagery is not fantastic, and is obtained by
the simplest means.
i;
r
POEMS OF PROBATION 39
Day by day my soul
Grew conscious of itself and of its fief
Within the shadow of her grave : therewith,
Waken'd a thirst for silence such as dwells
Under the ribs of death : whence slowly grew
Old instincts that had tranced me to tears
In mine unsinew'd boyhood, precious dreams
That swing like censers spilling balmy oils
O'er poppy flowers of sleep, mild sympathies
Full of faint odours and of music faint
Like buds of roses blowing !
So held I solemn tryst with Memory—
Who, with the pale babe Hope upon her breast,
Sits haggard, hooded underneath blue night,
Looking on heaven, and seeking evermore
To call to mind her dwelling-place
Where Hope was born, beyond the silent stars.
• •••"•
Then at last
Fair-statured, noble, like an awful thing
Frozen upon the very verge of life.
And looking back along eternity
With rayless eyes that keep the shadow Time.
Of other poems in this volume, * Fine Weather
on the Digentia,' which tells of idleness spiced
with philosophy, is full of Grecian wisdom and
Athenian fire, and the Bard concludes with a
touching poem to his wife :
To one wild tune our swift blood went and came—
In an essay *0n My Own Tentatives,' in the
volume ' David Gray, and other Essays,' Mr.
Buchanan briefly enumerates the principles which
have regulated his own tentative attempts at
the poetry of humanity, as expressed in * Inver-
burn' and 'London Poems,' the remaining two
volumes of this probation period : ' That the
whole significance and harmony of life are never
40 ROBERT BUCHANAN
to be lost sight of in depicting any fragmentary
form of life, and that, therefore, the poet should
free himself entirely from all arbitrary systems
of ethics and codes of opinion, aiming, in a word,
at that thorough disinterestedness which is our
only means to the true perception of God's
creatures. That every fragmentary form of life is
not fit for song, but that every form is so fit which
can be spiritualised without the introduction of
false elements to the final literary form of
harmonious numbers. That failing the heroic
stature and the noble features, almost every human
figure becomes idealised whenever we take into
consideration the background of life, or picture, or
sentiment on which it moves ; and that it is to this
background a poet must often look for the means
of casting over his picture the refluent colour of
poetic harmony. That the true clue to poetic
success of this kind is the intensity of the poet's
own insight, whereby a dramatic situation, however
undignified, however vulgar to the unimaginative,
is made to intersect through the medium of lyrical
emotion with the entire mystery of human life,
and thus to appeal with more or less force to every
heart that has felt the world. . . .'
It was the poet's business, not to preach
morality, not to inculcate intellectuality, not
to describe this or that form of life as finally
and significantly holy, but to be just, without
judgment to the pathos and powers of all he
saw or apprehended. The accessories must
be laid aside, the conventionalities disregarded,
POEMS OF PROBATION 41
and the deep human heart laid bare. The only
bond incumbent on the poet was the artistic one.
It was not enough merely to represent life — it was
necessary that the representatives should be
beautiful. It was not enough to mirror truth— the
truth must be spiritualised. It was not enough to
catch the speech of man or woman — that speech
must be subtly set to music.
With these views he wrote the poems of
'Inverburn,' a series of dramatic soliloquies put
into the mouth of certain poor folk — figures seen
on the background of a familiar Scottish village :
The clachan with its humming sound of looms,
The quaint old gables, roofs of turf and thatch,
The glimmering spire that peeps above the firs,
The stream whose soft blue arms encircle all, —
And in the background heathery norland hills,
Hued like the azure of the dew-berrie,
And mingling with the regions of the Rain !
Of the fifteen poems in this volume of ' Idyls and
Legends,' in both 'Willie Baird' and 'Poet
Andrew' Mr. Buchanan, in his own words, attempts
perfect ideal backgrounds, the power and dreamy
influences of Nature in the one case, and the
intense glow of great human emotion in the other.
Of the whole series, Mr. George Henry Lewes
said : * If we look closely into these poems, we
shall be struck with the fact that, although quite
free from mannerism or eccentricity, his thought
and style are distinctly his own. While reading
the poems you never think of the poet. It is only
in the afterglow of emotion you think of him, and
then you know what rare power was needed to
42 ROBERT BUCHANAN
produce so genuine an effect.' The poems are, to
echo Mr. R. H. Hutton, 'simple and transparent
in structure as a crystal. No one can know what
true poetry is who does not feel its breath in
every line.'
'Willie Baird,' the first of the poems, 'a
winter idyl and an old man's tale, a tale for men
grey-haired, who wear, through second childhood,
to the Lord,' is the soliloquy of a Scottish dominie,
of no particular Micht,' neither Erastian nor
Moderate, but a dominie with the pathos and
dreaminess of those born and evolved amongst
the hills, one who, when he went to college and
heard the murmur of the busy street round him in
a dream.
Only saw
The clouds that snow around the mountain-tops,
The mists that chase the phantom of the moon
In lonely mountain tarns,— and heard the wrhile,
Not footsteps sounding hollow to and fro,
But winds sough-soughing thro' the woods of pine.
In the construction of this tragedy of simple
Scottish life, the poet has not put forth any great
wings for ambitious flight. The story is a simple
one of affection between dominie and boy, and a
third — a dog, about whom, in the intervals of Bible
instruction, the boy asks, *Do doggies gang to
heaven?' The dominie is a man of an uncom-
plicated type, but with a gift of insight and a hand
close gripping the mysteries of Nature, who
yearns for
Such tiny truths as only bloom
Like red-tipt gowans at the hallanstone,
Or kindle softly, flashing bright at times,
In fuf&ng cottage fires 1
POEMS OF PROBATION 43
And as for the boy :
When I look'd in Willie's stainless eyes
I saw the empty ether floating grey
O'er shadowy mountains murmuring low with winds ;
And often when, in his old-fashion'd way,
He question'd me, I seem'd to hear a voice
From far away, that mingled with the cries
Haunting the regions where the round red sun
Is all alone with God among the snow.
We hear much of their talks about the simple
things of Nature, and, the dominie's tales of men
of old, of Wallace and Bruce, and the sweet lady
on the Scottish throne,
Whose crown was colder than a band of ice,
Yet seem'd a sunny crown whene'er she smiled ;
the poem ending with the tragedy of the snow-
storm, and Willie's death; and we are told that
in death, on his face was
A smile — yet not a smile — a dim pale light
Such as the Snow keeps in its own soft wings ;
while his soul was
Far far away beyond the norland hills.
Beyond the silence of the untrodden snow.
None of these idyls lend themselves well for the
purposes of extraction. The simplicity and direct-
ness of the story is as a web that binds line to line,
and their success is achieved by the very uncon-
sciousness of the effort which shuns rhetoric.
* Poet Andrew,' though not to be read as liter-
ally interpreting all the facts of David Gray's life,
yet has for its groundwork a true experience.
44 ROBERT BUCHANAN
It holds, along with * Willie Baird,' the places of
honour in the collection, and tells of how the poet,
doomed for the inevitable pulpit (the cherished
career for the son of every Scot, weaver or farmer,
with an ambition), drifted into poetry and was
crowned dying. The ambition is expressed
thus:
And years wore on ; and year on year was cheer'd
By thoughts of Andrew, drest in decent black,
Throned in a Pulpit, preaching out the Word,
A house his own, and all the country-side
To touch their bonnets to him ;
followed by the 'horrible discovery' that the lad
was bent on idle rhymes.
The beauteous dream
Of the good Preacher in his braw black dress.
With house and income snug, began to fade
Before the picture of a drunken loon
Bawling out songs beneath the moon and stars, —
Of poet Willie Clay, who wrote a book
About King Robert Bruce, and aye got fou.
And scatter'd stars in verse, and aye got fou,
Wept the world's sins, and then got fou again, —
Of Fergusson, the feckless limb o' law, —
And Robin Burns, who gauged the whisky-casks
And brake the seventh commandment.
Then comes the story of the illness, the creeping
on of Death, the shadowing of those that watch,
and the last words, * Out of the Snow, the Snow-
drop—out of Death comes Life,' words that
reflect the steadfast faith of the poet.
Of other poems, 'The English Huswife's Gossip,'
according to the poet himself, 'lacks the back-
ground, touches nowhere on the great universal
chords of sympathy, and is insomuch unsuccessful
POEMS OF PROBATION 45
as a poem.' 'The Two Babes' is also, as the
poet describes, ' a mixed business.'
'Hugh Sutherland's Pansies' can be classed
with 'Willie Baird' in its idyllic tenderness and
beauty ; and ' The Widow Mysie,' an idyl of love
and whisky, is as fine a piece of pastoral humour
as is to be found outside of 'A Midsummer-
Night's Dream.' We are told of him who
Rather iVould have sat with crimson face
Upon the cutty-stool with Jean or Grace,
Than buy in kirk a partner with the power
To turn the mountain dew of Freedom sour,
and who went a-courting the Widow Mysie,
An angel in a cloud of toddy steam,
who proved so unfaithful and, need we add, so
canny, as to marry the lover's father — for that
way lay the ' siller,' and yet, in meditating on the
iron rule of the grey mare, and on his own single
blessedness, is content. Besides these poems of
the village, the book is enriched by several very
characteristic poems of Gnomes, Elfins, and
Fays, and includes one of the most often quoted
of Mr. Buchanan's poems, 'The Legend of the
Stepmother.'
In ' London Poems,' wrote Mr. Buchanan, * I
was at least a great deal juster to the rude forces
of life, my sympathy was bolder and more con-
fident, my soul clearer and more trustworthy as a
medium, however poor might be my power of
perfect artistic spiritualisation. As common life
was approached more closely, as the danger of
46 ROBERT BUCHANAN
vulgarity threatened more and more to interfere
with the reader's sense of beauty, the stronger and
tenderer was the lyrical note needed. In writing
such poems as "Liz" and "Nell," the intensest
dramatic care was necessary to escape vulgarity
on the one hand, and false refinement on the
other. " Liz," although the offspring of the very
lowest social deposits, possesses great natural
intelligence, and speaks more than once with a
refinement consequent on strange purity of
thought. Moreover, she has been under spiritual
influences. She is a beautiful living soul, just
conscious of the unfitness of the atmosphere she
is breathing, but, above all, she is a large-hearted
woman, with wonderful capacity for loving. She
is,' on the whole, quite an exceptional study,
although in many of her moods typical of her
class. " Nell " is not so exceptional, and since it is
harder to create types than eccentricities, her
utterance was far more difficult to spiritualise into
music. She is a woman, quite without refined
instincts, coarse, uncultured, impulsive. Her love,
though profound, is insufficient to escape mere
commonplace ; and it was necessary to breathe
around her the fascination of a tragic subject, the
lurid light of an ever-deepening terror. In the
"language" of both these poems I followed Nature
as closely as possible— so far as poetic speech can
follow ordinary speech. I had to add nothing,
but to deduct whatever hid, instead of expressing,
the natural meaning of the speakers ; for to obtrude
slips of grammar, misspellings, and other mean-
POEMS OF PROBATION 47
ingless blotches— in short, to lay undue emphasis
on the mere language employed, would have been
wilfully to destroy the artistic verisimilitude of
such poems. Every stronger stress, every more
noticeable trick of style, added after the speech
was sufficient to hint the quality of the speaker,
was so much over-truth, offending against the
truth's harmony. The object was, while clearly
conveying the caste of the speakers, to afford an
artistic insight into their souls, and to blend them
with the great universal mysteries of life and
death. Vulgarity obtruded is not truth spiritual-
ised and made clear, but truth still hooded and
masked, and little likely to reveal anything to the
vision of its contemplators. By at least one critic
I have been charged with idealising the speech a
little too much. Both ''Liz" and "Nell," it is
averred, occasionally speak in a strain very un-
common in their class. In reply to this, I may
observe how much mispronunciations, vulgarisms,
and the like, have blinded educated people to
the wonderful force and picturesqueness of the
language of the lower classes. They know
nothing of the educated luxury of using language
in order to conceal thought, but speak because
they have something to say, and try to explain
themselves as forcibly as possible.'
The * London Poems,' for which Mr. Buchanan
was upbraided by a contemporary for having
written ' Idyls of the gallows and the gutter, and
singing songs of costermongers and their trulls,'
completes the trilogy of probation poems. In the
48 ROBERT BUCHANAN
year 1866, tales of mean streets were not yet
idealised in the medium of artistic expression,
although * the good genie of fiction,' Charles
Dickens, was already reaping the harvest of
his masterpieces. In these latter days it is dif-
ferent, and it needs even no idealising and
spiritualising to secure the approbation of the
critics as long as art is conceived for art's sake.
To the present writer, if he may be allowed to
enter a personal note on the subject, there is in
these poems the record and the suggestion of ex-
periences and sensations sufficient to paint most
of the comedies and tragedies of life. Down many
infernal stairs the heirs of heaven are seen arising.
And looking back across the whole field of the
poet's work, the recollection of these poems,
tragic in their interests, true in their perspective,
and eloquent beyond words in the very simplicity
but forcibleness of their language, 'becomes a
sound of friendship in still places.'
The story of 'The Little Milliner,' the first of
the series, is a simple story of ' love in an attic,'
spoken in the language of a city clerk.
She on the topmost floor, I just below ;
She, a poor milliner, content and wise,
I, a poor city clerk, with hopes to rise.
'The Little Milliner,' far from drooping in the
city, found there a constant round of joy from day
to day.
And London streets, with all their noise and stir,
Had many a pleasant sight to pleasure her.
There were the shops, where wonders ever new,
As in a garden, changed the whole year through.
POEMS OF PROBATION 49
Oft would she stand and watch with laughter sweet
The Punch and Judy in the quiet street ;
Or look and listen while soft minuets
Play'd the street organ with the marionettes ;
Or joined the motley group of merry folks
Round the street huckster with his wares and jokes.
Fearless and glad, she join'd the crowd that flows
Along the streets at festivals and shows.
In summer time she loved the parks and squares,
Where fine folk drive their carriages and pairs ;
In winter time her blood was in a glow
At the white coming of the pleasant snow ;
And in the stormy nights, when dark rain pours,
She found it pleasant, too, to sit indoors,
And sing and sew, and listen to the gales,
Or read the penny journal with the tales.
She was a large-hearted little woman, with no
scorn for * those who lived amiss ' :
The weary women with their painted bliss ;
only wondering * if their mothers lived and knew,'
and speaking a gentle word if spoken to. It is
a simple story, without any of the deeper chords
of 'Nell,' or *Liz,' or 'Jane Lewson.' 'It was,'
says Mr. Buchanan, * clearly my endeavour, in this
poem, to evolve the fine Arcadian feeling out of
the dullest obscurity, to show how even brick
walls and stone houses may be made to blossom,
as it were, into blooms and flowers — to produce,
by delicate passion and sweet emotion, an effect
similar to that which pastoral poets have pro-
duced by means of greenery and bright sunshine.
In close connection with all that is dark and
solitary in London life, the little milliner was to
walk in a light such as lies on country fields,
exhibiting, as a critic happily phrases it, ' all the
D
50 ROBERT BUCHANAN
passion of youth, modulated by all the innocence
of a naked baby.'
*Liz' is a very different business. Here we
have the 'wearying, ever wearying for sleep,'
which is the keynote of much of the poet's insight.
It is a soliloquy put into the mouth of a flower-
girl of nineteen years of age, dying on the morning
of her child's birth. She tells her simple story to
the Parson :
It does not seem that I was born. I woke,
One day, long, long ago, in a dark room.
And saw the housetops round me in the smoke,
And, leaning out, look'd down into the gloom.
Saw deep black pits, blank walls, and broken panes.
And eyes, behind the panes, that flash'd at me,
And heard an awful roaring, from the lanes,
Of folk I could not see ;
Then, while I look'd and listen'd in a dream,
I turn'd my eyes upon the housetops grey.
And saw, between the smoky roofs, a gleam
Of silver water, winding far away.
That was the River. Cool and smooth and deep,
It glided to the sound o' folk below.
Dazzling my eyes, till they began to grow
Dusty and dim with sleep.
Oh, sleepily I stood, and gazed, and hearken'd !
And saw a strange, bright light, that slowly fled,
Shine through the smoky mist, and stain it red,
And suddenly the water flash'd, — then darken'd ;
And for a httle time, though I gazed on,
The river and the sleepy light were gone ;
But suddenly, over the roofs there lighten'd
A pale, strange brightness out of heaven shed.
And, with a sweep that made me sick and frighten'd.
The yellow Moon roll'd up above my head ; —
And down below me roar'd the noise o' trade,
And ah ! I felt alive, and was afraid,
And cold, and hungry, crying out for bread.
And then she dwells on what she counted the
pleasures of life up in their attic near the sky :
i
POEMS OF PROBATION 51
Yet, Parson, there were pleasures fresh and fair,
To make the time pass happily up there :
A steamboat going past upon the tide,
A pigeon lighting on the roof close by.
The sparrows teaching little ones to fly.
The small white moving clouds, that we espied.
And thought were living, in the bit of sky —
With sights like these right glad were Ned and I.
How one day, sick of hunger, cold, and strife,
she took a sudden fancy to see the country, and,
like a guilty person, stole out of the smoke into
the sun :
I '11 ne'er forget that day. All was so bright
And strange. Upon the grass around my feet
The rain had hung a million drops of light ;
The air, too, was so clear and warm and sweet.
It seem'd a sin to breathe it. All around
Were hills and fields and trees that trembled through
A burning, blazing fire of gold and blue ;
And there was not a sound,
Save a bird singing, singing in the skies.
And the soft wind, that ran along the ground.
And blew so sweetly on my lips and eyes.
Then, with my heavy hand upon my chest,
Because the bright air pain'd me, trembling, sighing,
I stole into a dewy field to rest,
And oh ! the green, green grass where I was lying
Was fresh and living— and the bird sang loud.
Out of a golden cloud —
And I was looking up at him and crying!
But she never saw the country more.
I would not stay out yonder if I could.
For one feels dead, and all looks pure and good, —
I could not bear a light so bright and still.
She breathed happily only in the deep miasma of
the city, and all she cared for was sleep.
All that I want is sleep, i
Under the flags and stones, so deep, so deep ! i
God won't be hard on one so mean, but He, ]
52 ROBERT BUCHANAN
Perhaps, will let a tired girl slumber sound
There in the deep cold darkness underground ;
And I shall waken up in time, may be,
Better and stronger, not afraid to see
The great, still Light that folds Him round and round !
Two companion pieces, * The Starling ' and
* The Linnet,' are what the poet calls ' bird poems,'
where by natural laws of association, and in very
different ways, a caged starling and a caged linnet
are made to flash upon their owners wild or bright
glimpses of the outlying districts from which they
come. The starling was the property of a little
lame tailor, who ' sat stitching and snarling,' and
whose end is expressed thus :
Felt life past bearing.
And shivering, quaking.
All hope forsaking.
Died swearing ;
the linnet belonging to a sempstress, and recall-
ing for her the scenes and airs of her old life in
the country.
* Jane Lewson ' is a study in the holy self-abne-
gation of motherhood, and is painted in lines
vigorous and inspiring. Jane Lewson is a veritable
* heir of heaven,' although at times in her woe
She thought the great cold God above her head
Dwelt on a frosty throne and did not hear.
The basis of the story is a familiar one of seduc-
tion, but the tragedy and the nobility lie in the
effort made by the mother to hide from her child
the secret of its birth and her ' shame.' The child
was
A passion-flower !— a maiden whose rich heart
Burn'd with intensest fire that turn'd the light
POEMS OF PROBATION 53
Of the sweet eyes into a warm dark dew ;
One of those shapes so marvellously made,
Strung; so intensely, that a finger-press,
The dropping of a stray curl unaware
Upon the naked breast, a look, a tone,
Can vibrate to the very roots of life,
And draw from out the spirit light that seems
To scorch the tender cheeks it shines upon ;
A nature running o'er with ecstasy
Of very being, an appalling splendour
Of animal sensation, loveliness
Like to the dazzling panther's ; yet, withal,
The gentle, wilful, clinging sense of love.
Which makes a virgin's soul.
With steadfast idea the mother kept silent :
The dull nature clung
Still unto silence, with the still resolve
Of mightier natures,
and bore the insults and contempt of two prim
'holy' sisters with the never-despairing fortitude
of an unconscious martyr,
* Edward Crowhurst,' labourer, writes poems
with
A crystal clearness, as of running brooks,
A music, as of green boughs murmuring,
A peeping of fresh thoughts in shady places
Like violets new-blown, a gleam of dewdrops,
A sober, settled, greenness of repose, —
And lying over all, in level beams,
Transparent, sweet, and unmistakable.
The light that never was on sea or land ;
and echoed
The pathos and the power of common life.
A simple man, he is a sky-gazer and a dreamer.
His poems are published, and then
Every morn
Came papers full of things about the Book,
And letters full of cheer from distant folk ;
And Teddy toil'd away, and tried his best
54 ROBERT BUCHANAN
To keep his glad heart humble. Then, one day
A smirking gentleman, with inky thumbs,
Call'd, chatted, pried with little fox's eyes
This way and that, and when he went away
He wrote a heap of lying scribble, styled
' A Summer Morning with the Labourer Bard ! '
Then others came : some, mild young gentlemen,
Who chirp'd, and blush'd, and simper'd, and were gone ;
Some, sallow ladies wearing spectacles,
And pale young misses, rolling languid eyes.
And pecking at the words my Teddy spake
Like sparrows picking seed.
And following that begins the downward path, the
journey to London, the feasting, the old story of
the flattery of genius by commonplace— Burns
over again,— the return to the country, and then
that other change which comes in the lives of
most men of untutored genius :
A change had come.
As dreadful as the change within himself.
The papers wrote the praise of newer men.
And strange folk sent him letters scarce at all.
And when he spake about another book.
The man in London wrote a hasty ' No ! '
His fine-day friends like swallows wing'd away,
The summer being o'er.
* Artist and Model ' is interesting as expressing
more than once, in simple terms, the relation of
the artist to his work.
Nay, beauty is all our wisdom,—
We painters demand no more.
Since the truth we artists fail for,
Is the truth that looks the truth.
Enough to labour and labour.
And to feel one's heart beat right.
POEMS OF PROBATION 55
Yet the beauty the heart would utter
Endeth in agony ;
And life is a climbing, a seeking
Of something we never can see !
And death is a slumber, a'dreaming
Of something that may not be !
And when God takes much, my darling,
He leaves us the colour and form, —
The scorn of the nations is bitter.
But the touch of a hand is warm.
Of other poems, 'Barbara Gray' has a distinct
genius of its own. The story is of a woman
loved for the first time late in life, soliloquising
over the dead body of her * dwarf lover.
For where was man had stoop'd to me before.
Though I was maiden still, and girl no more ?
Where was the spirit that had deign'd to prize
The poor plain features and the envious eyes ?
What lips had whisper'd warmly in mine ears ?
When had I known the passion and the tears ?
Till he I look on sleeping came unto me.
Found me among the shadows, stoop'd to woo me,
Seized on the heart that flutter'd withering here,
Stung it and wrung it with new joy and fear.
Yea, brought the rapturous light, and brought the day,
Waken'd the dead heart, withering away.
Put thorns and roses on the unhonour'd head,
That felt but roses till the roses fled !
Who, who, but he crept unto sunless ground.
Content to prize the faded face he found ?
John Hamerton, I pardon all— sleep sound, my love, sleep
sound !
On the whole, it is the most original of the poems
in the volume, and is gifted with a fine disdain,
an abandon and a pathos which render it quite
perfect as an artistic effort.
At the end of these poems of the city is
appended a series of lines entitled * London, 1864 '
which are of so directly personal a nature, and
56 ROBERT BUCHANAN
express so clearly the condition of the poet's
soul, that we are constrained to print them here
in full, notwithstanding their length. It will
help those who know the poet only slightly, if
at all, to grasp at a keynote of his aspirations
that may assist them to understand more clearly
many things expressed before, and more things
to be expressed or hinted at later.
Why should the heart seem stiller,
As the song grows stronger and surer ?
Why should the brain grow chiller,
And the utterance clearer and purer ?
To lose what the people are gaining
Seems often bitter as gall,
Though to sink in the proud attaining
Were the bitterest of all.
I would to God I were lying
Yonder 'mong mountains blue,
Chasing the morn with flying
Feet in the morning dew !
Longing, and aching, and burning
To conquer, to sing, and to teach,
A passionate face upturning
To visions beyond my reach, —
But with never a feeling or yearning
I could utter in tuneful speech !
II.
Yea ! that were a joy more stable
Than all that my soul hath found, —
Than to see and to know, and be able
To utter the seeing in sound ;
For Art, the Angel of losses, i
Comes, with her still, grey eyes,
Coldly my forehead crosses,
Whispers to make me wise ;
And, too late, comes the revelation.
After the feast and the play.
That she works God's dispensation
By cruelly taking away :
POEMS OF PROBATION 57
By burning the heart and steeling,
Scorching- the spirit deep,
And changing the flower of feeling.
To a poor dried flower that may keep
What wonder if much seems hollow,
The passion, the wonder dies ;
And I hate the angel I follow.
And shrink from her passionless eyes, —
Who, instead of the rapture of being
I held as the poet's dower-
Instead of the glory of seeing.
The impulse, the splendour, the power-
Instead of merrily blowing
A trumpet proclaiming the day,
Gives, for her sole bestowing,
A pipe whereon to play !
While the spirit of boyhood hath faded.
And never again can be,
And the singing seemeth degraded.
Since the glory hath gone from me, —
Though the glory around me and under,
And the earth and the air and the sea.
And the manifold music and wonder.
Are grand as they used to be !
III.
Is there a consolation
For the joy that comes never again ?
Is there a reservation ?
Is there a refuge from pain ?
Is there a gleam of gladness
To still the grief and the stinging ?
Only the sweet, strange sadness.
That is the source of the singing.
IV.
For tke sound of the city is weary.
As the people pass to and fro.
And the friendless faces are dreary.
As they come, and thrill through us, and go ;
And the ties that bind us the nearest
• Of our error and weakness are born ;
And our dear ones ever love dearest
Those parts of ourselves that we scorn ;
58 ROBERT BUCHANAN
And the weariness will not be spoken,
And the bitterness dare not be said,
The silence of souls is unbroken,
And we hide ourselves from our Dead !
And what, then, secures us from madness ?
Dear ones, or fortune, or fame ?
Only the sweet singing- sadness
Cometh between us and shame.
V.
And there dawneth a time to the Poet,
When the bitterness passes away,
With none but his God to know it.
He kneels in the dark to pray ;
And the prayer is turn'd into singing.
And the singing findeth a tongue.
And Art, with her cold hands clinging.
Comforts the soul she has stung.
Then the Poet, holding her to him,
Findeth his loss is his gain :
The sweet singing sadness thriUs through him.
Though nought of the glory remain ;
And the awful sound of the city,
And the terrible faces around.
Take a truer, tenderer pity.
And pass into sweetness and sound ;
The mystery deepens to thunder.
Strange vanishings gleam from the cloud,
And the Poet, with pale lips asunder,
Stricken, and smitten, and bow'd,
Starteth at times from his wonder.
And sendeth his Soul up aloud !
In later editions there are included several
additional poems, of which 'The Wake of Tim
O'Hara' is perhaps the most characteristic, and
conveys in a striking sense the gift of tears
mingled with the gift of laughter, Mr. Buchanan's
never-failing possessions. Of the others, 'Kitty
Kemble' is a noteworthy piece of poetical bio-
graphy, full of knowledge of the startling blend-
ing of footlight egoism with the tragedy of
POEMS OF PROBATION 59
the merely human. How true to life are these
touches :
The town's delight, the beaux', the critics', Kitty !
The brightest wonder human eye could see
In good old Comedy :
A smile, a voice, a laugh, a look, a form,
To take the world by storm !
A dainty dimpling intellectual treasure
To give old stagers pleasure !
A rippling radiant cheek— a roguish eye-
That made the youngsters sigh !
And thus beneath a tinsell'd pasteboard Star
At once you mounted your triumphant car,
O'er burning hearts your chariot wheels were driven,
Bouquets came rolling down Uke rain from heaven,
And on we dragged you, Kitty, while you stood
Roguish and great, not innocent and good.
The Queen Elect of all Light Womanhood !
And in contrast :
As we had done ; so our poor Kitty came
To be the lonely ghost of a great name —
A worn and wanton woman, not yet sage
Nor wearied out, tho' sixty years of age.
Wrinkled and rouged, and with false teeth of pearl,
And the shrill laughter of a giddy girl ;
Haunting, with painted cheek and powder'd brow,
The private boxes, as spectator now ;
Both day and night, indeed, invited out
To private picnic and to public rout.
Because thy shrill laugh and thy ready joke
Ever enlivened up the festal folk.
And then :
And here 's the end of all. And on thy bed
Thou Uest, Kitty Kemble, lone and dead ;
And on thy clammy cheek there lingers faint
The deep dark stain of a life's rouge and paint ;
And, Kitty, all thy sad days and thy glad
Have left thee lying for thy last part clad.
Cold, silent, on the earthly Stage ; and while
Thou Hest there with dark and dreadful smile,
6o ROBERT BUCHANAN
The feverish footlights of the World flash bright
Into thy face with a last ghastly light ;
And while thy friends all sighing rise to go,
The great black Curtain droppeth, slow, slow, slow.
God help us ! We spectators turn away ;
Part sad, we think, part merry, was the Play.
God help the lonely player now she stands
Behind the darken'd scenes with wondering face,
And gropes her way at last, with clay-cold hands,
Out of the dingy place.
Turning towards Home, poor worn and weary one.
Now the last scene is done.
In addition to the 'London Poems' there are
included in the volume four other pieces of a
miscellaneous nature, of which 'The Death of
Roland' and 'The Scaith o' Bartle' are the
more ambitious. Consideration of these we must
postpone till we come to consider in a separate
chapter several other poems that can be placed
in the same category, of which 'The Battle
of Drumliemoor' and 'The Lights of Leith' are
notable examples.
In the three volumes which have been thus
subjected to such a hurried consideration, we
have caught sight of some of the tendencies
which are the foundation of the Buchanan
of the later periods. Beliefs and hopes that
in those days were glaring in their simplicity,
may have become, if not dimmed, yet modified,
but in the spirit of the work there is little altera-
tion except that which springs from a natural
growth. And if, says the poet :
I list to sing of sad things oft.
It is that sad things in this life of breath
POEMS OF PROBATION 6i |
Are truest, sweetest, deepest. Tears bring forth '
The richness of our nature, as the rain I
Sweetens the smelling brier, and I, thank God, ]
Have anguish'd here in no ignoble tears,
Tears for the pale friend with the singing life, '
Tears for the father with the gentle eyes
(My dearest up in heaven next to God)
Who loved me like a woman. I have wrought
No garland of the rose and passion-flower
Grown in a careful garden in the sun ;
But I have gathered samphire dizzily
Close to the hollow roaring of a sea.
CHAPTER III
'THE BOOK OF ORM '
An interval of four years brings us in 1870 to
the publication of 'The Book of Orm,' in other
words, 'The Book of the Visions seen by Orm
the Celt.' In this volume, which, by the poet's
own confession, strikes the personal keynote to
all his work, the poet enters boldly into the
lights and shadows of mystic realism. Here, in
the character of Orm the Celt, the poet brings
himself face to face with the mysteries of life
and death ; here he attempts to grapple with the
unseen ; dreams of an uplifted veil ; has visions
of man's birth, rise, and fall ; and sees with the
eye of the poet the lonely God who neither can
nor will help the human sufferer in his desire
for knowledge, peace, rest, and, perhaps, forget-
fulness :
There is a mortal, and his name is Orm,
Born in the evening of the world, and looking
Back from the sunset to the gates of morning.
In 'The First Song of the Veil' we are told
how ' Ere Man grew, the Veil was woven bright
and blue,' and how this veil * the beautiful Master '
drew over his face :
62
'THE BOOK OF ORM' 63
Then starry, luminous,
Rolled the Veil of azure j
O'er the first dwellings j
Of mortal race ; '
—And since the beginning j
No mortal vision, |
Pure or sinning, j
Hath seen the Face i
Yet mark me closely ! j
Strongly I swear, ,
Seen or seen not, j
The Face is there I I
When the Veil is clearest j
And sunniest, !
Closest and nearest ,
The Face is prest ; I
But when, grown weary
With long downlooking, |
The Face withdrawing I
For a time is gone, i
The great Veil darkens,
And ye see full clearly ]
Glittering numberless I
The gems thereon. i
For the lamp of his features ,
Divinely burning,
Shines, and suffuses
The Veil with light, ,
And the Face, drawn backward
With that deep sighing
Ye hear in the gloaming,
Leaveth the Night.
And thus men as they journeyed graveward,
'evermore hoping, evermore seeking, nevermore
guessing, crying, denying, questioning, dreaming,'
nevermore certain, evermore craved to look on a
token, to gaze on the Face, in vain. Next we ;
have a picture of Earth the Mother : \
Beautiful, beautiful, she lay below, j
The mighty Mother of humanity.
Turning her sightless eyeballs to the glow
Of light she could not see. '
64 ROBERT BUCHANAN
Feeling the happy warmth, and breathing slow
As if her thoughts were shining tranquilly.
Beautiful, beautiful the Mother lay,
Crowned with silver spray,
The greenness gathering hushfully around
The peace of her great heart, while on her breast
The wayward Waters, with a weeping sound,
Were sobbing into rest.
For all day long her face shone merrily.
And at its smile the waves leapt mad and free :
But at the darkening of the Veil, she drew
The wild things to herself, and husht their cries.
Then, stiller, dumber, search'd the deepening Blue
With passionate blind eyes ;
And went the old life over in her thought,
Dreamily playing as her memory wrought
The dimly guess'd at, never utter'd tale,
While, over her dreaming,
Deepen'd the luminous,
Star-inwrought, beautiful,
Folds of the wondrous Veil.
And the poet tells us how
In the beginning, long ago.
Without a Veil looked down the Face ye know.
And Earth, an infant happy-eyed and bright,
Look'd smiling up, and gladden'd in its sight.
But later, when the Man Flower from her womb
Burst into brightening bloom,
In her glad eyes a golden dust was blown
Out of the Void, and she was blind as stone.
And since that day
She hath not seen, nor spoken,— lest her say
Should be a sorrow and fear to mortal race,
And doth not know the Lord hath hid away,
But turneth up blind orbs— to feel the Face.
The voices of the Children of Earth are heard
crying :
' O Mother ! Mother
Of mortal race !
Is there a Father ?
Is there a Face ? '
'THE BOOK OF ORM' 65
She felt their sorrow
Against her cheek, —
She could not hearken,
She could not speak ;
and although the Master answers from the
thunder-cloud, ' I am God the Maker, I am God
the Master, I am God the Father,' Earth and her
children neither saw nor heard. The Wise Men
are called into view, and looming there lonely,
they search the Veil wonderful 'with tubes fire-
fashioned in caverns below,' and we are told in a
striking line that
God withdrew backward,
and after long searching, in which blindness met
some, and death others, the remainder creep
slowly back from the heights to which they had
ascended, crying out :
' Bury us deep when dead —
We have travelled a weary road,
We have seen no more than ye.
'Twere better not to be —
There is no God ! '
And the people, hearkening-,
Saw the Veil above them.
And the darkness deepen'd.
And the Lights gleamed pale.
Ah ! the lamps numberless,
The mystical jewels of God,
The luminous, wonderful,
Beautiful Lights of the Veil !
Part II. is entitled 'The Man and the Shadow.'
On the high path where few men fare,
Orm meeteth one with hoary hair.
And speaketh, solemn and afraid,
Of that which haunteth him — a Shade.
E
^ ROBERT BUCHANAN
The lonely man sitteth with downcast eyes,
motionless :
Thou broodest moveless, letting yonder sun
Make thee a Dial, worn and venerable.
To show the passing hour.
The old man's 'withered flesh is scented with a
Soul,' and Orm is filled with joy
To meet
A royal face like thine ; to touch the hand
Of such a soul-fellow ; to feel the want.
The upward-crying- hunger, the desire,
The common hope and pathos, justified
By knowledge and grey hairs.
He talks to him of life and its meaning, of the
shadows which haunt us to the grave, and of the
mystery beyond. They climb together higher, yet
higher, though the path is steep, and take a view
of the many-coloured picture before them, the
immeasurable mountains, the glassy ocean like
a sheet of mother-o'-pearl, and the sky— that field
of dreamy blue 'wherein the rayless crescent of
the midday Moon lies like a reaper's sickle '—and
there Orm asks :
What magic ? What Magician ? O my Brother,
What strange Magician, mixing up those tints,
Pouring the water down, and sending forth
The crystal air like breath, showing the heavens
With luminous jewels of the day and night,
Look'd down, and saw thee lie a lifeless clod.
And lifted thee, and moulded thee to shape,
Colour'd thee with the sunhght till thy blood
Ran ruby, poured the chemic tints o' the air
Through eyes that kindled into azure, stole
The flesh tints of the lily and the rose
To make thee wondrous fair unto thyself,
Knitted thy limbs with ruby bands, and blew
Into thy hollow heart until it stirred,—
'THE BOOK OF ORM' 67
and pointing to the vales, he continues :
Below, a Storm of people like to thee
Drifts with thee westward darkly, cloud on cloud,
Uttering a common moan, and to our eyes
Casting one common shadow ; yet each Soul
Therein now seeketh, with a want like thine,
The inevitable bourne. Nor those alone,
Thy perishable brethren, share thy want.
And wander haunted through the world ; but Beasts,
With that dumb hunger in their eyes, project
Their darkness — by the yeanling Lambkin's side
Its shade plays, and the basking Lizard hath
Its image on the flat stone in the sun, —
And these, the greater and the less, like thee
Shall perish in their season : in the mere
The slender Water-Lily sees her shape,
And sheddeth softly on the summer air
Her last chill breathing ; and the forest Tree
That, standing glorious for a hundred years.
Lengthens its shadow daily from the sun,
Fulfilleth its own prophecy at last.
And falleth, falleth. Art thou comforted ?
Orm speaks on, of the wild desires of the soul, and
of the eternal shadow which haunts it; of the
blank eyes and blank souls which the seeing soul
meets, as it wears
Westward, to the melancholy Realm
Where all the gather'd Shades of all the world
Lie as a cloud around the feet of God.
It sees the ox eye, the blank faces of brute beasts
and small-eyed kings, the former the happier,
* because never nameless trouble filled their eyes.'
Lift up thine eyes, old man, and look on me :
Like thee, a dark point in the scheme of things,
Where the dumb Spirit that pervadeth all —
Grass, trees, beasts, man— and lives and grows in all —
Pauses upon itself, and awe-struck feels
The shadow of the next and imminent
6S ROBERT BUCHANAN
Transfiguration. So, a living- Man I
That entity within whose brooding brain
Knowledge begins and ends — that point in time
When Time becomes the Shadow of a Dial, —
That dreadful living and corporeal Hour,
Who, wafted by an unseen Hand apart
From the wild rush of temporal things that pass,
Pauses and listens, — listening sees his face
Glassed in still waters of Eternity, —
Gazes in awe at his own loveliness.
And fears it, — glanceth with affrighted eyes
Backward and forward, and beholds all dark.
Alike the place whence he unconscious came,
And that to which he conscious drifteth on, —
Yet seeth before him, wheresoe'er he turn.
The Shadow of himself, presaging doom.
The old man speaks and calls out that he sees
Shadows ! I see them— all the Shadows— see !
Uprising from the wild green sea of graves
That beats forlorn about the shores of earth.
Shadows— behold them !— how they gather and gather.
More and yet more, darker and darker yet ;
Drifting with a low moan of mystery
Upward, still upward, till they almost touch
The bright dim edge of the Bow, but there they pause.
Struggling in vain against a breath from heaven,
And blacken. Hark ! their sound is like a Sea !
Above them, with how dim a light divine,
Burneth the Bow,— and lo ! it is a Bridge,
Dim, many-colour'd, strangely brightening,
Whereon, all faint and fair and shadowless.
Spirits like those, with faces I remember.
With a low sound like the soft rain in spring.
With a faint echo of the cradle-song.
Coming and going, beckon me ! I come !
Who holds me ? Touch me not. O help ! I am called !
Ah!
And dies, and as his soul passes, Orm asks :
Art thou free ?
Dost thou still hunger upward seeking rest.
Because some new horizon, strange as ours.
Shuts out the prospect of the place of peace ?
Art thou a wave that, having broken once,
'THE BOOK OF ORM' 69 i
Gatherest up a glorious crest once more, j
And glimmerest onward, — but to break again ; i
Or dost thou smooth thyself to perfect peace i
In tranquil sight of some Eternal Shore ?
No answer comes, and espying the Rainbow, he !
thus addresses it, as the Shadows gather round ]
him: j
The beautiful Bow of thoughts ineifable, |
Last consequence of this fair cloud of flesh ! j
The dim miraculous Iris of sweet Dream ! i
Rainbow of promise ! Colour, Light, and Soul ! ,
That comes, dies, comes again, and ever draws i
Its strangest source from tears— that lives, that dies — !
That is, is not— now here, now faded wholly — ']
Ever assuring, ever blessing us, i
Ever eluding, ever beckoning ; j
Born of our essence, yet more strange than we. '
Part III. is entitled ' Songs of Corruption.' The
first of these, * Phantasy,' telling of death which
comes to take the pale wife. In the face of the I
mystery of death, the poet asks : j
What art thou —
Art thou God's angel ?
Or art thou only
The chilly night- wind,
Stealing downward
From the regions where the sun '
Dwelleth alone with his shadows
On a waste of snow ?
Art thou the water or earth ? j
Or art thou the fatal air ? '.
Or art thou only
An apparition
Made by the mist
Of mine own eyes weeping?
the poet marvelling that one so gentle as Death
should cast a Shadow so vast,— she, the pointing i
of whose finger j
Fadeth far away, ,
On the sunset-tinged edges, i
Where Man's company ends,
And God's loneliness begins. ;
i
\
70 ROBERT BUCHANAN
The second poem has for its title * The Dream of
the World without Death,' in which vision is
pictured the possible despair of humanity at the
absence of the signs of death. Instead of the
bloomless face, shut eyes, and waxen fingers —
nothing but wondrous parting and a blankness.
I could not see a kirkyard near or far ;
I thirsted for a green grave, and my vision
Was weary for the white gleam of a tombstone.
And the world shrieked, and the summer-time was bitter,
And men and women feared the air behind them !
And for lack of its green graves the world was hateful.
Women pour forth their cries to God to restore
the signs of death :
The closing of dead eyelids is not dreadful.
For comfort comes upon us when we close them.
And tears fall, and our sorrow grows familiar ;
And we can sit above them where they slumber,
And spin a dreamy pain into a sweetness.
And know indeed that we are very near them.
But to reach out empty arms is surely dreadful,
And to feel the hollow empty world is awful.
And bitter grow the silence and the distance.
There is no space for grieving or for weeping ;
No touch, no cold, no agony to strive with.
And nothing but a horror and a blankness !
'Whither, and O whither,' said the woman,
' O Spirit of the Lord, hast Thou conveyed them,
My little ones, my little son and daughter ?
' For, lo ! we wandered forth at early morning,
And winds were blowing round us, and their mouths
Blew rose-buds to the rose-buds, and their eyes
' Looked violets at the violets, and their hair
Made sunshine in the sunshine, and their passing
Left a pleasure in the dewy leaves behind them ;
'THE BOOK OF ORM' 71
' And suddenly my little son looked upward,
And his eyes were dried like dew-drops ; and his going
Was like a blow of fire upon my face.'
There was no comfort in the slow farewell,
Nor gentle shutting of beloved eyes,
Nor beautiful brooding over sleeping features.
There were no kisses on familiar faces,
No weaving of white grave-clothes, no last pondering
Over the still wax cheeks and folded fingers.
The vision ends :
But I awoke, and, lo ! the burthen was uplifted,
And I prayed within the chamber where she slumbered,
And my tears flowed fast and free, but were not bitter.
I eased my heart three days by watching near her,
And made her pillow sweet with scent and flowers,
And could bear at last to put her in the darkness.
And I heard the kirk-bells ringing very slowly.
And the priests were in their vestments, and the earth
Dripped awful on the hard wood, yet I bore it.
And I cried, ' O unseen Sender of Corruption,
I bless Thee for the wonder of Thy mercy.
Which softeneth the mystery and the parting.
' I bless Thee for the change and for the comfort,
The bloomless face, shut eyes, and waxen fingers, —
For Sleeping, and for Silence, and Corruption.'
Part IV. * The Soul and the Dwelling,' is a fine
imaginative flight dealing with the loneliness of
humanity, and the vanity of the wish that soul can
ever really mix with soul. * Pent in each prison
must each miraculous spirit remain.'
Not yet, not yet.
One dweller in a mortal tenement
Can know what secret faces hide away
Within the neighbouring dwelling. Ah beloved,
The mystery, the mystery ! We cry
For God's face, who have never looked upon
The poorest Soul's face in the wonderful
Soul-haunted world.
72 ROBERT BUCHANAN
And speaking of the soul he had sought in heart's
blood, that of the beloved one, he tells how each
cried to the other in vain.
A spirit once there dwelt
Beside me, close as thou— two wedded souls,
We mingled— flesh was mixed with flesh— we knew
All joys, all unreserves of mingled life —
Yea, not a sunbeam filled the house of one
But touched the other's threshold. Hear me swear
I never knew that Soul ! All touch, all sound,
All light was insufficient. The Soul, pent
In its strange chambers, cried to mine in vain—
We saw each other not : but oftentimes
When I was glad, the windows of my neighbour
Were dark and drawn, as for a funeral ;
And sometimes, when most weary of the world.
My Soul was looking forth at dead of night,
I saw the neighbouring dwelling brightly lit,
The happy windows flooded full of Ught,
As if a feast were being held within.
Yet were there passing flashes, random gleams.
Low sounds, from the inhabitant divine
I knew not ; and I shrunk from some of these
In a mysterious pain. At last. Beloved,
The frail fair mansion where that spirit dwelt
Totter'd and trembled, through the wondrous flesh
A dim sick glimmer from the fire within
Grew fainter, fainter. ' I am going away,'
The Spirit seemed to cry ; and as it cried.
Stood still and dim and very beautiful
Up in the windows of the eyes— there linger'd,
First seen, last seen, a moment, silently |
So different, more beautiful tenfold
Than all that I had dreamed— I sobbed aloud
' Stay ! stay ! ' but at the one despairing word
The spirit faded, from the hearth within
The dim fire died with one last quivering gleam —
The house became a ruin ; and I moaned
' God help me ! 'twas herself that look'd at me !
First seen ! I never knew her face before ! . . .
Too late ! too late ! too late ! '
Part V. 'Songs of Seeking,' contains 'The Happy
Earth' 'O Unseen One!' the 'World's Mystery'
?
'THE BOOK OF ORM' 73
(the mystery of pain and suffering) ; * The Cities,'
in which the anomalies and injustices of life are
mirrored ; ' The Priests,' in which eternal con-
demnation is poured forth by 'priests in divers
vestments ' on the wicked ; ' The Lamb of God '
bleating like a thing in pain, with its bloodstains
still bright ; and ' Doom,' in which the poet again
reiterates his steadfast belief in the immortality
of all creation, to be so eloquently elaborated later
in * The Vision of the Man Accurst * :
Master, if there be Doom,
All men are bereaven !
If, in the universe,
One Spirit receive the curse,
Alas for Heaven !
If there be doom for one,
Thou, Master, art undone.
This division also includes the beautiful 'Flower
of the World.'
Wherever men sinned and wept, '
I wandered in my quest ;
At last in a Garden of God j
I saw the Flower of the World. ;
This Flower had human eyes,
Its breath was the breath of the mouth ;
Sunlight and starlight came.
And the Flower drank bliss from both.
Whatever was base and unclean.
Whatever was sad and strange.
Was piled around its roots ;
It drew its strength from the same.
Whatever was formless and base
Pass'd into fineness and form ;
Whatever was lifeless and mean
Grew into beautiful bloom.
74 ROBERT BUCHANAN
Then I thoug-ht, ' O Flower of the World,
Miraculous Blossom of things,
Light as a faint wreath of snow
Thou tremblest to fall in the wind.
' O beautiful Flower of the World,
Fall not nor wither away ;
He is coming- — He cannot be far —
The Lord of the Flow'rs and the Stars.
And I cried, ' O Spirit divine !
That walkest the Garden unseen,
Come hither, and bless, ere it dies.
The beautiful Flower of the World.'
Part VI. 'The Lifting of the Veil,' tells how in
a dream Orm sees the Veil lifted, and the effect the
revelation had upon the world. 'The Face was
there: it stirred not, changed not, though the world
stood still amazed ; but the eyes within it, like the
eyes of a painted picture, met and followed the eyes
of each that gazed.' At once the eyes of all the
world are held in an hypnotic trance by the awful
eye of the world ; all action ceases, and everywhere
'tis a piteous Sabbath :
Each soul an eyeball,
Each face a stare.
There is no bartering, no trafficking, only staring ;
and of the faces some were glad, some pensive,
and some mad — 'twas everywhere a frozen pleasure
and a frozen pain— and in his vision Orm seems to
see the mortal race building covered cities to hide
the Face ; the common sorrow, yearning, and love
passed from the earth ; the heart of the world had
no pulsation— * 'twas a piteous Sabbath every-
where.'
Part VII. comprises the 'Coruisken Sonnets,'
'THE BOOK OF ORM' 75
in which for the first time the poet essays the
Sonnet as a form of poetical expression. They
are thirty-four in all, and the general 'motif
which underlies them is the Soul's direct expres-
sion to a silent, pitiless, lonely, beautiful God.
The * mise-en-scene ' is Loch Coruisk, in the island
of Skye, a woodless, barren, hill-topped waste of
Celtic country — the very 'back of beyont' of
tradition. The corry by the water, which in
plain English is the name for this Western haunt
of mists and shadows, was a fit place for the
gathering of possible mystic forms, seeking to
find in the eternal hills the silent and lonely God
from whose breath springs the essences of natural
growth. Fit place this for Die Walkyrie, for the
ghostly visitations of Walpurgisnacht, the ideal
sporting-ground of witches and water-kelpies, 'the
blackest mountain-side,' to use Sir Walter Scott's
words, in the island ; ' black waves, bare crags,
and banks of stone. I think,' writes Mr. Buchanan,
' this is the very stillest place on all God's earth.'
Ghostly and livid, robed with shadow, see !
Each mighty Mountain silent on its throne,
From foot to scalp one stretch of hvid stone,
Without one gleam of grass or greenery.
Silent they take the immutable decree —
Darkness or sunlight come,— they do not stir ;
Each bare brow lifted desolately free,
Keepeth the silence of a death-chamber.
Silent they watch each other until-doom ;
They see each other's phantoms come and go.
Yet stir not. Now the stormy hour brings gloom,
Now all things grow confused and black below,
Specific through the cloudy Drift they loom,
And each accepts his individual woe.
76 ROBERT BUCHANAN
Desolate ! How the Peaks of ashen gray,
The smoky Mists that drift from hill to hill,
The Waters dark, anticipate this day
That sullen desolation. Oh, how still
The shadows come and vanish, with no will !
How still the Waters watch the heaven's array !
How still the melancholy vapours stray,
Mirror'd below, and drifting on, fulfil
Thy mandate as they mingle ! — Not a sound,
Save that deep murmur of a torrent near,
Deepening silence. Hush ! the dark profound
Groans, as son- a gray crag loosens and falls sheer
To the abyss. Wildly I look around,
O Spirit of the Human, art Thou here ?
Here in this rugged temple, the God whom the
poet pictures is faced with invocation and prayer.
Joining with the Jewish psalmist, he cries, 'The
heavens declare the glory of God'; yet asks,
'What is all this glory to those who work and
pray, who suffer and weep?' and prays for one
warm touch from a Father who neither hears nor
speaks. The immemorial Heavens bend sweet
eyes down, but cold are ' they as clay.'
But I have found a voice, and I will pray.
The poet goes on to mourn that he has not
found the Father by the starved widow's bed, nor
in sick-rooms, nor in the bloody and bleared eyes
of cities, where innocence cried with feeble voice,
strangled in the grip of treachery and lust. The
Home is fair, yet all is desolate, because the Father
comes not ; the clouds of fate sodden above us ; like
children in an empty home sit all, castaway
children, lone and fatherless. The anguish and
the suffering, the hopelessness conceived under
the merciless hand of an inexorable environment,
*THE BOOK OF ORM' 77
drive the poet to utter words that seem to suggest
a failing regard for the eternity of things :
When He returns, and finds the World so drear —
All sleeping, — young and old, unfair and fair, j
Will he stoop down and whisper in each ear, I
' Awaken ! ' or for pity's sake forbear, — 1
Saying, ' How shall I meet their frozen stare j
Of wonder, and their eyes so full of fear ? I
How shall I comfort them in their despair, \
If thej' cry out, " Too late ! let us sleep here "?' I
Perchance He will not wake us up, but when
He sees us look so happy in our rest, i
Will murmur, ' Poor dead women and dead men ! I
Dire was their doom, and weary was their quest. '
Wherefore awake them unto life again ?
Let them sleep on untroubled— it is best.'
And praying, he cries :
And wise, and gentle, oh come down, come down ! ]
Come like an Angel with a human face, ]
Pass through the gates into the hungry Town, ;
Comfort the weary, send the afflicted grace,
Shine brighter on the Graves where we lay down
Our dear ones, cheer them in the narrow place !
Carried away by the splendour of the world itself,
the grandeur of the scene o'er which the God !
broods with loveless eye for humanity, the poet j
speaks :
Oh, Thou art beautiful ! and Thou dost bestow
Thy beauty on this stillness — still as sheep
The Hills he under Thee ; the Waters deep
Murmur for joy of Thee ; the voids below
Mirror Thy strange fair Vapours as they flow.
The sonnets throughout contain many fine
efforts at word-painting.
See ! onward swim
The ghostly Mists, from silent land to land.
From gulf to gulf ; now the whole air grows dim —
Like living men, darkling a space, they stand.
But lo ! a Sunbeam, like the Cherubim,
Scatters them onward with a flaming brand.
78 ROBERT BUCHANAN
O hoary Hills, though ye look aged, ye
Are but the children of a latter time—
Methinks I see ye in that hour sublime
When from the hissing cauldron of the Sea
Ye were upheaven, while so terribly
The Clouds boiled, and the Lightning scorched ye bare.
Wild, new-born, blind, Titans in agony.
Ye glared at heaven through folds of fiery hair ! . . .
Then, in an instant, while ye trembled thus,
A Hand from heaven, white and luminous,
Pass'd o'er your brows, and husht your fiery breath.
Lo ! one by one the still Stars gather'd round,
The great Deep glass'd itself, and with no sound
A cold Snow fell, and all was still as death.
• • • • • *
O Rainbow, Rainbow, on the livid height,
Softening its ashen outlines into dream,
Dewy yet brilliant, delicately bright
As pink wild-roses' leaves, why dost thou gleam
So beckoningly ? Whom dost thou invite
Still higher upward on the bitter quest ?
What dost thou promise to the weary sight
In that strange region whence thou issuest ?
Speakest thou of pensive runlets by whose side
Our dear ones wander sweet and gentle-eyed,
In the soft dawn of some diviner Day?
Art thou a promise ? Come those hues and dyes
From heavenly Meads, near which thou dost arise, [
Iris'd from Quiet Waters, far away !
The appeal to the inexorable Father, which is
continued throughout the sonnets, is sometimes
drowned in tears of helplessness, and sometimes
roused to the pitch of fiery anger and remorse :
Oh, what have sickly Children done, to share
Thy cup of sorrows ? yet their dull, sad pain
Makes the earth awful ;
The Angels Thou hast sent to haunt the street
Are Hunger and Distortion and Decay.
• • • . • • •
Over and over again, the poet harps back to the
helplessness of God. * There is no death ; powerless
*THE BOOK OF ORM' 79
even God's right hand, full arm'd with fate, to
slay the meanest thing beneath the sky.'
Yet hear me, Mountains ! echo me, O Sea !
Murmur an answer, Winds, from out your caves ;
Cry loudly. Torrents, Mountains, Winds, and Waves —
Hark to my crying- all, and echo me —
All things that live are deathless— I and ye.
The Father could not slay us if He would ;
The Elements in all their multitude
Will rise against their Master terribly.
If but one hair upon a human head
Should perish ! . . . Darkness grows on crag and steep,
A hollow thunder fills the torrent's bed ;
The wild Mists moan and threaten as they creep ;
And hush ! now, when all other cries are fled,
The warning murmur of the white-hair'd Deep.
If love could only spring between Maker and man,
if man could see that love worked, instead of law,
all would be well with the poet.
Here in the dark I grope, confused, purblind ;
I have not seen the glory and the peace ;
But on the darken'd mirror of the mind
Strange glimmers fall, and shake me till they cease —
Then, wondering, dazzled, on Thy name I call,
And, like a child, reach empty hands and moan.
And broken accents from my wild lips fall.
And I implore Thee in this human tone ; —
If such as I can follow Him at all
Into Thy presence, 'tis by love alone.
Part VIII. ' The Coruisken Vision ' is cast on the
same stage, with a dramatis personse of Orm, the
Spirit of Sorrow, and a chorus of voices, built on
the lines of the Greek tragedies. Here Orm, led
by the Spirit of Sorrow,^ is shown under the 'white
smile of the ghostly Moon, an edifice that whirls
on serpent columns heavenward, at whose gates
1 Satan. See 'The Devil's Case.'
8o ROBERT BUCHANAN
sits a little Child, turning the dim leaves of a
Prayer Book :
With fingers light, as are a rose's leaves,
And smiling on the things it sees therein.
Here in this edifice sit the Kings of Thought in
meditation, while Bael, the immortal Child at the
door, who sat on Eve's shoulder, and is immortal
because he has not eaten of the Tree of Sorrow,
reads on. Here we find Menu, the son of Brahm,
who grew so wise, they took him for a god;
Orpheus, who 'having swept each circle course
divine ' :
Whirl'd like a moth around an altar lamp,
A moment round that inmost flame of all,
then fell to Lesbos, blind with light; Socrates,
who, tasting the bitterness of wisdom, smiled glori-
ously, and so passed up to God, wise in his dying ;
Diogenes :
Who stole the wondrous fruit.
And munched it in the mud, and scowled on all,
Because it tasted sourly ;
Plato, with great eyes dim with dream of all
who ever lived and died :
The one who loved the quest for its own sake
Because it led him into paths so fair ;
Married his days and nights to thought, and left
Broods of angelic dreams attesting all,
That by the unassisted mind of man
Could be conceived of immortality,
Saw Truth in open daylight, face to face.
And would have loved and understood her too,
Had he not thought knowledge so beautiful.
David, king of Israel, 'with blue eyes looking
down on the pale youth swinging by hair of gold
'THE BOOK OF ORM' 8r
to the black branches of a forest tree '—all these
seeking the Eternal wisdom, striving to open the
Book of the World which abideth under the
waters. All
Search'd for the same from birth to the grave,
And wearily westering perished !
while the little one at the gate points with hand to
a passage in the book :
' Verily I say,
Except a man be born again, he shall not
Enter the kingdom of God.'
Then, while voices sing :
The smile of a little child
Disturbs us where we sit
On our thrones— the Wise and the Mighty.
Never heretofore
Have our thrones been shaken.
Never heretofore
Did we know and wonder !
We are, and we are not, we know and we know not,
We come and we go at thy bidding ;
the child kisses the Spirit of Sorrow and the
Temple vanishes, and in a mist Orm seems to
see the shadow of a cross— which the Spirit tells
him is the shadow of his thought crossing the
luminous silence of the stars. Bidding him fare-
well, Satan cries :
And when thou prayest, pray for me.
Pray for the outcast Spirit ! Pray for all
Strong Spirits that are outcast !
And falling on his knees, Orm prays :
Father God,
Forgive thy child ! behold him on his knee !
Evil is Evil, Father, Good is Good,
Darkness is dreadful, and the Light Divine.
82 ROBERT BUCHANAN
'The Devil's Mystics' comprises Part IX., in
which 'The Tree of Life' deals with the three
gardeners, Regret, Hope and Memory, and the
setting and feeding of the Seed by the world's
smiles and tears bringing forth a blossom which
the Angels named * Spirit,' a flower which is to
bear no seed, but is to be plucked by the Sun
and worn till it withers in his hair.
The second of this series is * The Seeds,' with its
recurring lines :
till:
' Grow, Seed ! blossom, Brain !
Deepen, deepen, into pain ! '
When standing in the perfect light
I saw the first-born Mortal rise —
The flower of things he stood his height
With melancholy eyes.
' Grow, Seed ! blossom, Brain !
Deepen, deepen, into pain ! '
From all the rest he drew apart,
And stood erect on the green sod,
Holding his hand upon his heart.
And looking up at God !
' Grow, Seed ! blossom. Brain !
Deepen, deepen, into pain ! '
He stood so terrible, so dread,
With right hand lifted pale and proud,
God feared the thing He fashioned,
And fled into a cloud.
' Grow, Seed ! blossom. Brain !
Deepen, deepen, into pain ! '
And since that day He hid away
Man hath not seen the Face that fled,
And the wild question of that day
Hath not been answered.
' Grow, Seed ! blossom. Brain !
Deepen, deepen, into pain ! '
Following this are the poems of 'The Philo-
'THE BOOK OF ORM' 83
sophers,' the drinkers of hemlock, 'worn and
old, who drink and dream, each with the sad
forehead, each with the cup of gold'; and the
* Prayer from the Deep.' The series ends with two
prayers, one a general invocation of pity for
those who weep and weep, for those who have
passed through the gate, and for those who
wander free after the passing through, with a
final note that the Son may help all those who
go before the Father, and a second personal
prayer of Orm the Celt.
In the time of transfiguration,
Melt me, Master, like snow ;
Melt me, dissolve me, inhale me
Into Thy \wool-white cloud ;
With a warm wind blow me upward
Over the hills and the seas,
And upon a summer morning
Poise me over the valley
Of Thy mellow, mellow realm ;
Then, for a wondrous moment,
Watch me from infinite space
With Thy round red Eyeball of sunlight.
And melt and dissolve me downward
In the beautiful silver Rain
That drippeth musically,
With a gleam hke Starlight and Moonlight,
On the footstool of Thy Throne.
'The Vision of the Man Accurst' is the fitting
peroration of this splendid piece of spiritual
eloquence. The rhetoric, which has seldom failed
throughout the whole book, reaches its highest
pitch in the stately diction of this remarkable
poem. 'Thou shalt not cast away any man'
serves as the text of the whole, which com-
84 ROBERT BUCHANAN
mences with 'Judgment was over; all the world
redeemed save one Man,' and ends with
' The Man is saved ; let the Man enter in ! '
It is the embodiment, the central fire, of all the
poet's philosophy, of the one belief to which he
has clung with a fierce tenacity. This man,
'the basest mortal born,' 'who had sinned all
sins, whose soul was blackness and foul odour,'
had in him, in the poet's view, the seeds of
immortality like all children of the Godhead, and
must be saved.
Like golden waves
That break on a green island of the south,
Amid the flash of many plumaged wings,
Passed the fair days in Heaven. By the side
Of quiet waters perfect Spirits walked,
Low singing, in the star-dew, full of joy
In their own thoughts, and pictures of those thoughts
Flash'd into eyes that loved them ; while beside them,
After exceeding storm, the Waters of Life
With soft sea-sound subsided. Then God said,
' 'Tis finished— all is well ! ' But as He spake
A voice, from out the lonely Deep beneath,
Mock'd !
Then to the Seraph at the Gate,
Who looketh on the Deep with steadfast eyes
For ever, God cried, ' What is he that mocks ? '
The Seraph answered, ' 'Tis the Man accurst ! '
And, with a voice of most exceeding peace,
God ask'd, ' What doth the Man ? '
The Seraph said :
' Upon a desolate peak, with hoar-frost hung.
Amid the steaming vapours of the Moon,
He sitteth on a throne, and hideously
Playeth at judgment ; at his feet, with eyes
Slimy and luminous, squats a monstrous Toad ;
Above his head pale phantoms of the Stars
Fulfil cold ministrations of the Void,
And in their dim and melancholy lustre
'THE BOOK OF ORM' 85
His shadow, and the shadow of the Toad
Beneath him, linger. Sceptred, thron'd, and crown'd,
The foul judgeth the foul, and sitting grim.
Laughs ! '
With a simple directness the poet proceeds to
tell of the daring defiance which the foulest of
mankind hurls at the Throne, and still
The Waters of Life,
The living, spiritual Waters, broke.
Fountain-like, up against the Master's Breast,
Giving and taking blessing. Overhead
Gather'd the shining legions of the Stars,
Led by the ethereal Moon, with dewy eyes
Of lustre : these have been baptized with fire,
Their raiment is of molten diamond.
And 'tis their office, as they circhng move
In their blue orbits, evermore to turn
Their faces heavenward, drinking peace and strengfth
From that great Flame which, in the core of Heaven,
Like to the white heart of a violet burns.
Diffusing rays and odour. Blessing all,
God sought their beauteous orbits, and behold !
The Eyes innumerably glistening
Were turned away from Heaven, and with sick stare,
Like the blue gleam of salt dissolved in fire,
They searched the Void, as human faces look
On horror.
The Master is petitioned to send forth His fire
to wither up ' the worm ' who repenteth not but
blasphemeth; but He answers, 'What I have
made, a living Soul, cannot be unmade, but en-
dures for ever,' and says, ' Call the Man ! ' and
ere the man could fly, the wild wind in its
circuit swept upon him, and like a straw whirled
him and lifted him and cast him at the gate.
The Lord asking what the man doeth, learns
that he thirsts, and gives him water, having
86 ROBERT BUCHANAN
partaken of which * the Man, looking up out of his
drooping hair, grinned mockery at the Giver.'
Then saith the Lord, *Doth the Man crave to
enter in ? ' ' Not so ; he says his Soul is filled with
hate of Thee and of Thy ways he loathes pure
pathways ; and he spitteth hate on all Thy
Children. ' ' What doth he crave ? '
t
' Neither Thy Heaven nor by Thy holy ways.
He murmureth out he is content to dwell
In the Cold Clime for ever, so Thou sendest
A face to look upon, a heart that beats,
A hand to touch — albeit like himself,
Black, venomous, unblest, exiled, and base :
Give him this thing-, he will be very still.
Nor trouble Thee again.'
The Lord mused.
Still,
Scarce audible trembled the Waters of Life-
Over all Heaven the Snow of the same Thought
Which rose within the Spirit of the Lord
Fell hushedly ; the innumerable eyes
Swam in a lustrous dream.
Then said the Lord :
' In all the waste of worlds there dwelleth not
Another like himself— behold he is
The basest Mortal born. Yet 'tis not meet
His cruel cry, however piteous.
Should trouble my eternal Sabbath-day.
Is there a Spirit here, a human thing.
Will pass this day from the Gate Beautiful
To share the exile of this Man accurst,—
That he may cease the shrill pain of his cry,
And I have peace ? '
Hushedly, hushedly,
Snow'd down the Thought Divine— the hving Waters
Murmured and darkened. But like mournful mist
That hovers o'er an autumn pool, two Shapes,
Beautiful, human, glided to the Gate
And waited.
'THE BOOK OF ORM' 87
* What art thou ? ' in a stern voice
The Seraph said, with dreadful forefinger
Pointing to one. A gentle voice replied,
' I will go forth with him whom ye call curst !
He grew within my womb— my milk was white
Upon his lips. I will go forth with him ! '
And thou ? ' the Seraph said. The second Shape
Answered, ' I also will go forth with him ;
I have kist his lips, I have lain upon his breast,
I bare him children, and I closed his eyes ;
I will go forth with him ! '
Then said the Lord :
' What Shapes are these who speak ? ' The Seraph answer'd.
The woman who bore him, and the wife he wed—
The one he slew in anger— the other he stript.
With ravenous claws, of raiment and of food.'
Then said the Lord, ' Doth the Man hear?' ' He hears,'
Answer'd the Seraph ; ' like a wolf he lies,
Venomous, bloody, dark, a thing accurst,
And hearkeneth, with no sign ! ' Then said the Lord :
'Show them the Man,' and the pale Seraph cried,
' Behold ! '
Hushedly, hushedly, hushedly,
In heaven fell the Snow of Thought Divine,
Gleaming upon the Waters of Life beneath.
And melting,— as with slow and lingering pace,
The Shapes stole forth into the windy cold.
And saw the thing that lay and throbbed and lived.
And stooped above him. Then one reach'd a hand
And touch'd him, and the fierce thing shrank and spat,
Hiding his face.
' Have they beheld the Man ? '
The Lord said ; and the Seraph answer'd ' Yea ' ;
And the Lord said again, ' What doth the Man ? '
' He lieth like a log in the wild blast.
And as he lieth, lo ! one sitting takes
His head into her lap, and moans his name.
And smoothes his matted hair from off his brow,
And croons in a low voice a cradle-song ;
And lo ! the other kneeleth at his side.
Half-shrinking in the old habit of her fear.
Yet hungering with her eyes, and passionately
Kissing his bloody hands.'
88 ROBERT BUCHANAN
Then said the Lord,
' Will they go forth with him ? ' A voice replied,
' He grew within my womb — my milk was white
Upon his lips. I will go forth with him ! '
And a voice cried, ' I will go forth with him ;
I have kist his lips, I have lain upon his breast,
I bare him children, and I closed his eyes ;
I will go forth with him ! '
Still hushedly
Snowed down the Thought Divine, the Waters of Life
Flow'd softly, sadly ; for an alien sound,
A piteous human cry, a sob forlorn
Thrill'd to the heart of Heaven,
The Man wept.
And in a voice of most exceeding peace
The Lord said (while against the Breast Divine
The Waters of Life leapt, gleaming, gladdening) :
' The Man is saved ; let the Man enter in ! '
CHAPTER IV
'THE DRAMA OF KINGS'
Turning from the 'unsung city's streets,' and
leaving for a space the eternal hills, the poet
published in 1871, on the very morn almost after
the curtain had fallen on the Franco-German
struggle, his poetic play, ' The Drama of Kings.'
It was, as the poet himself said, the first serious
attempt ever made to treat great contemporary
events in a dramatic form, and very realistically,
yet with something of the massive grandeur of
style characteristic of the great dramatists of
Greece. * In minor points of detail, the author is
sanguine that it is not all Greek, nor in any sense
archaic. The interest is epic rather than tragic ;
but what the leading character is to a tragedy,
France is to "The Drama of Kings," a wonderful
genius, guilty of many sins, terribly overtaken by
misfortune, and attaining in the end perhaps to
purification.' It is necessary to notice here the
cautious use of the word 'perhaps,' as the light
of recent events rather points to the historical
accuracy of the doubt of any salvation coming
to the Gaul, as expressed in the words put by
S9
90 ROBERT BUCHANAN
the dramatist into the mouth of the Prussian
Chancellor :
On this side Time, there is no hope for France.
The whole drama deals with the struggle
between Teuton and Celt, from the days of the
First Napoleon to the fall of Paris. In this, as
in the poet's other work, the one point of view
adopted is, not that of the politician, the satirist, or
the historian, 'but that of the realistic Mystic, who,
seeking to penetrate deepest of all into the soul,
and to represent the soul's best and finest mood,
seizes that moment when the spiritual or emotional
nature is most quickened by sorrow or self-
sacrifice, by victory or by defeat. In good honest
truth, the writer has had far greater difficulty in
detecting the spiritual point in these great leaders
than in the poor worms at their feet. The utterly
personal moods of arbitrary power, the impos-
sibility of self-abnegation for the sake of any other
living creature, the frightful indifference to all ties,
the diabolic supremacy of the intellect, make the
first Emperor a figure more despairing to the
Mystic than the coster-girl dying in childbed in
a garret, or the defiant woman declaiming over
the corpse of her deformed seducer. It is in this
sense of the superlatively diabolic that has made
the author, in the epilogue, attribute the perform-
ance of the three leading characters to Lucifer
himself;— only, let it be understood, not to the
irreclaimable and Mephistophelean type of utter
evil, but to the Mystic's Devil, a spirit as difficult
'THE DRAMA OF KINGS' 91
to fathom individually, but clearly in the Divine
service, working for good. Perhaps the super-
natural machinery of Prelude and Epilude is a
defect, like all allegory, but if it serves to keep
before the reader the fact that the whole action of
the drama is seen from the spiritual or divine
auditorium, he will not regret its introduction, and
in using it without perfect faith, he may plead the
example of the greatest poetic sceptic of modern
times. No one did fuller justice to mystic truths
than the great positivist who wrote the first and
second "Fausts."'
As for the metrical combinations used in the
choruses, most of them are quite new to English
poetry.
The Drama of Evolution, as the poet calls it
in his dedication to the Spirit of Auguste Comte,
opens with a Prelude before the curtain, in which
the Lord, the Archangels, Lucifer, and Celestial
Spectators form the 'preludi personae,' Lucifer
informing us that he has selected the fairest and
the sweetest-voiced cherubs to play the part of
Chorus.
Following this is the Prologue spoken by Time,
cloaked and hooded, leaning on a staff; Time
snow'd upon by many winters, but faring west-
ward still, and ever looking backward to the
east. Upon his ears strike the cries of * Liberty !
Liberty ! '
God knows and hears
That one word and none other hath been cried
By men from the beginning. I have heard
The sound so long, I smile ; but at the same
92 ROBERT BUCHANAN
Kingdoms have fallen like o'er-ripen'd fruit,
Realms wither'd, heaven rain'd blood and earth yawn'd graves,
The seasons sicken'd changing their due course,
The stars burnt blue for many awful nights,
The corpse-lights of a v?orld that lay as dead.
Upon the stage, he declares, will be presented
two mighty nations gathering up their crests
against each other, smiting dimly and darkly
for the great Idea. ' Phantoms cloaked by time,
struggling in the name of Liberty.'
My name
Is also Death ; and I am deathless. I
Am Time and most eternal. I am he,
God's Usher, and my duty it is to lead
The actors one by one upon the scene.
And afterwards to guide them quietly
Through that dark postern when their parts are played.
They come and go, alas ! but I abide,
And I am weary of the garish stage.
The first part of the drama has for its title,
'Buonaparte, or France against the Teuton,'
the speakers being Napoleon Buonaparte, Alex-
ander I. of Russia, Jerome, King of Westphalia,
Louisa, Queen of Prussia, the King of Saxony,
Baron von Stein, Professor Jahn, the poet Arndt,
and others, the time October 1808, during the
great Congress of Powers, and the scene Erfurt,
in the Duchy of Saxe-Coburg Gotha. A long
and fierce storm of words are uttered, first by
Stein, Arndt, and Jahn, all pouring out the agony
of their souls at the bloodthirsty, tyrannical
ambition of the Little Corporal of France ; Stein
asking in despair if all the ghosts of the Teutons
are laid for evermore, if Karl and Fritz are
'THE DRAMA OF KINGS' 93
forgotten, everybody in Germany dumb, fetter'd,
broke, miserable, dead ?
Are this man's functions supernatural,
Divine above all life, all love, all law,
That he should walk upon the waves of earth
Casting his bloody shade as on a sea,
And they should hush themselves around his feet
Lightly as ripples on a summer pond ?
Earth, water, air — the clouds, the waves, the winds,
The stars in their pale courses, — day and night
Forgetful of their natural equipoise.
Shape their mysterious functions to his will ;
Kings lick his feet like dogs ; he lifts his finger
And epileptic in his chair the Pope
Foams speechless at the mouth ;— body and soul
Obey him as an impulse and a law ; —
The eyes, the ears, the tongues, of all the world
Are blown one way like all a forest's leaves
To see, hear, and entreat him ;— by his smile
The earth is brighten'd, — and 'tis straight fine weather !
Let him but frown, all darkens, and the sun
Uprises bloody as a vulture's crest !
Like hawks obedient to the falconer
The Kings of Europe wait, and at a sign
Soar, while he sits and smiles, in fierce pursuit
Of any wretched quarry he would slay ;
But let him whistle, and with bloody beaks
They turn, and preen their plumage, and are fed.
Cry ? I will cry to God with all my soul !
Can God keep calm, and look upon these things ?
Whilst a Chorus of Spirits sings of the rise and
fall of kings :
After each reaping
We see upcreeping
Another master !
Another chain ! —
Stein and Jahn burst in with maledictions on
the destroyers of liberty — Liberty now 'no more
a living shape supremely fair, but a mere ghost,
unpleasant to the thoughts of foolish kings at
94 ROBERT BUCHANAN
bedtime '—and moan that every wind is tainted
by this pestilence of France. The skeleton of
Law tyrannises everywhere ; France is law, fate,
and death, and
All men of noble birth must flock perforce
To spend three months of every year at court,
There to be taught to play this mad French tune
Upon the one-string'd fiddle of despair.
Stein cries 'Courage!' and swears all this shall
cease when a new Teuton soul is created; and
picturing the greatness of Napoleon, declares
* the life of every man is a wave, and having risen
its appointed height, it must descend, and then
shall rise the Teuton, an Iris on the Death-cloud,
springing out of the proud Imperial Austrian
ruin, not a delusion and a patrician lie, a paste-
board Crown and an unholy Sword, but a living
man, lord of all, and then the heart of Europe will
be watered by the Rhine.' In the meantime, this
crowned Shape knocks like Death at every door,
and enters every kingly chamber as sleep doth,
bringing, instead of sleep, sleepless Despair and
Fear.
And within the night's dark core where the sad Cross gleam'd
before
Sits the Shape that Kings adore, upon a Throne ;
And the nations desolate crawl beneath and curse their fate.
And the wind goes by and bites them to the bone.
We are next brought to face a scene in which
Buonaparte and the Kings are the leading
'persons'; Buonaparte being without the help of
sullen Austria, who sits like some poor cudgel-
player with cracked crown, scowling upon the
'THE DRAMA OF KINGS' 95
victor in the game, mending the tattered realm,
and tonicking the sick stomach of the time. To
them enters Louisa of Prussia, who on bended
knee supplicates the 'firebrand of the Earth.*
Her supplication failing, she thus pours forth
the agony of her soul :
Pitiless ! pitiless ! pitiless ! pitiless !
' Earth's masters ? ' — O thrice miserable Earth
If these are masters of thy continents !
Bodies without a heart ! tyrants whose thrones
Are based upon unutterable pain,
One on the frozen ice of the East's despair,
One on the bloody lava hard and black
Scatter'd by the volcano of the West !
What hope for the poor world if these join hands,
Murder with Avarice, Poison with the Sword,
Cunning with Hatred, Pride with Cruelty,
The heir of Despots with the Parvenu,
Moloch, whose cold and leaden eyeballs gloat
On old familiar woes deep as the grave.
With the quick soul of subtler Lucifer
Ever devising novel agonies !
O Spirit of God, who with mysterious breath
Dost fashion e'en the will of men-like fiends
And fiend-Uke men to obey thee and to work
Thy strange dim ends, thy doom, thy deep revenge.
Penetrate this day into very Hell,—
Into the heart of Earth that is as Hell,—
Work in the council-chamber, in the ears
Of these arch-tyrants whisper doubts and fears,
Disturb their privy-councils, let them mark
The viper on each other's smiling lips.
And while they seek to cheat humanity
And portion Europe's bleeding body in twain.
Let each outwit the other,— Uke two thieves
Fall at each other's throats, — fiery with greed
Strike in new hatred at each other's hearts,— |
And struggle, to the laughter of the world, \
Till one or both fall impotent and dead ! |
'i
Here follows a dialogue between Stein and the I
Queen, in which the sorrow and agony of the
time are reflected, and again the Chorus is heard
96 ROBERT BUCHANAN
singing of the rise of Napoleon and the fall of
Liberty. A scene of high passion between Napo-
leon and the Pope's Cardinal is to be noted, in
which the Tyrant bursts forth :
Is the man mad,
That he should howl in our imperial ear
The flat old thunders that so long have turned
The small-beer kingdoms sour with jeopardy?
and warns the Cardinal of the danger to the
Pope, whom he had set up, whose 'stale scare-
crow of a creed he had propt up in the Vatican ' :
Let him look to it,
Or by St. Peter and his rusty Key,
That turns so slowly in the lock of Heaven,
This hand shall set the foolscap on his head
And fix a scarecrow on the heights of Rome
For all the world to point at passing by !
There is much dialectical abuse of the Romish
Church in this scene, at whose end the Chorus
sings of the glory of God, who is * deep and still,
subtle as Love, and sure of foot as Fate,' and
conveys a warning note to those who stand
paralysed under the tyranny of the Emperor :
God gave ye living wills for other aim,
Voices for other sounds than moans of blame,
Hands for more use than folding on the breast ;
Daily the sun goes down into the west —
How long shall it go down upon your shame ?
We are then plunged into the whirlpool of a
Napoleonic soliloquy :
The cup is overflowing. Pour, pour yet.
My Famulus— pour with free arm-sweep still,
And when the wine is running o'er the brim,
Sparkling with golden bubbles in the sun,
I will stoop down and drink the full great draught
'THE DRAMA OF KINGS' 97
Of glory, and as did those heroes old
Drinking- ambrosia in the happy isles,
Dilate at once to perfect demigod.
Meantime, I feast my eyes as the wine runs
And the cup fills. Fill up, my Famulus !
Pour out the precious juice of all the earth,
Pour with great arm-sweep, that the world may see.
O Famulus— O Spirit — O good Soul,
Come close to me and listen — curl thyself
Up in my breast — let us drink ecstasy
Together ; for the charm thou taughtest me
Is working Uke slow poison in the veins
Of the great nations : each, a wild-beast tamed,
Looks mildly in mine eyes and from my hand
Eats gently.
Proceeding in the grandly heroic strain of an
egoist who is conscious of his power, he draws,
for his soul to gloat over, the turgid picture of his
blood-clouded horizon, and conceives, with diabolic
chuckle, the possibility of his becoming the Regent
of the World.
Shall this be so, O Spirit ? Pour, O pour-
Yea, let me feast mine eyes upon the wine,
Albeit I drink not. See !— Napoleon,
Waif from the island in the southern sea,
Sun to whom all the Kings of the earth are stars,
Sword before which all earthly swords are straws.
Child of the Revolution, crown and head,
Heart, soul, arm. King, of all Humanity.
It shall be a world without priests or idols in dark
sacrifice, governed not by twenty thousand kings
of Lilliput — little kings which he has held like
insects in his hand while he inspected them — but
by the one conquering heaven or hell sent Buona-
parte. Yet he knows that the Spirit of mankind
continually moves on :
The mighty Spirit of mankind
Has stagger'd from the sick-bed to his feet,
G
98 ROBERT BUCHANAN
And feebly totters, picking- darken'd steps,
And while I lead him on scarce sees the sun,
But questions feebly ' whither ? ' Whither ? Indeed
I am dumb, and all earth's voices are as dumb —
God is not dumber on His throne. In vain
I would peer forward, but the path is black.
Ay, — whither?
Before him he sees the grim Titan of Liberty, who
may arise one bloody morning from his torpor,
and bring down the roof of Empire on his head.
Has he, he asks himself, 'been lulling the Titan
with a lie ' ? Yes, he knows that the promise to
lead him to the trysting-place where waits his
constant love and most immortal bride — Peace — is
a vague dream, and he sees how, when the
awakening comes, he will be cast with the Titan's
last fierce breath ' down through the gate into the
pit of doom.'
Yet is this Titan old so weak of wit,
So senile-minded though so huge of frame,
So deaf to warning voices when they cry.
That, should no angel light from heaven and speak
The mad truth in his ear, he will proceed
Patiently as a lamb. He counteth not
The weary years ; his eyes are shut indeed
With a half smile, to see the mystic face
Pictured upon his brain ; only at times
He lifteth lids and gazeth wildly round.
Clutching at the cold hand of him that guides,
But with a whisper he is calm'd again,
Relapsing back into his gentle dream.
O he is patient, and he will await
Century after century in peace.
So that he hears sweet songs of her he seeks,
So that his guides do speak to him of her,
So that he thinks to clasp her in the end.
And as it must come, even to Napoleon, there
sounds the footfall of the dread spectre itself.
*THE DRAMA OF KINGS' 99
O for a spell
Wherewith to cheat old Death, whose feet I hear
Afar off, for I hate the bony touch
Of hands that change the purple for the shroud !
The Chorus follows, and the curtain drops on
the first part.
A Choric Interlude, in which the Titan Liberty
is heard bewailing the perfidy of the Emperor,
now meets our attention, the Interlude finally
picturing for us the fall and death of the betrayer.
The voice of Liberty sings :
All shall forget thee. Thou shalt hear the nations
Flocking with music, light and acclamations
To kiss his royal feet
Who sitteth in thy Seat,
Surrounded by the slaves of lofty stations.
A rock in the lone sea shall be thy pillow.
In the wide waste of grey wave and green billow,
The days shall rise and set
In silence, and forget
To sun thee, — a black shape beneath a willow
Watching the weary waters with heart bleeding ;
Or dreaming cheek upon thy hand ; or reading
The book upon thy knee ;
And ever as the sea
Moans, raising eyes to the still heaven, and pleading ;
Till like a wave worn out with silent breaking ;
Or like a wind blown weary ; thou, forsaking
Thy tenement of clay,
Shalt wear and waste away,
And grow a portion of the ever-waking
Tumult of cloud and sea. Feature by feature
Losing the likeness of the living creature,
Returning back thy form
To its elements of storm,
Thou shalt dissolve in the great wreck of Nature.
100 ROBERT BUCHANAN
Part II. of the drama is * Napoleon Fallen.' We
are carried forward seventy-two years, to the year
1870, shortly after the surrender of Sedan ; the
scene being drawn at the Chateau of Wilhelms-
hohe in Cassel. Our ears are first greeted by the
Chorus :
Ah, to grow old, grow old,
Upon a throne of gold—
Ah, on a throne, so lone,
To wear a crown ;
To watch the clouds, the air,
Lest storm be breeding there-
Pale, lest some blast may cast
Thy glory down.
Hast thou a hard straw bed ?
Hast thou thy crust of bread ?
And hast thou quaff 'd thy draught
Of water clear ?
And canst thou dance and sing ? —
O blesseder than a King !
O happy one whom none
Doth hate or fear !
following which we are confronted with a dialogue
between the third Napoleon and a Physician.
The physical and mental condition of the Emperor
is drawn for us in detail, * not dying — only sick, as
all are sick who feel the mortal prison-house too
weak for the play of the soul.' His hatred of war,
his hesitation, and his feebleness at the moment
of resolve, are all presented. A chorus follows, in
which is indicated the fatality of building too near
the Sea of Life :
How for long intervals and vast
Strange secrets hide from day,
Till Nature's womb upheaves to cast
The gather'd load away ;
How deep the very laws of life
Deposit elements of strife.
*THE DRAMA OF KINGS' lOl
O many a year in sun and shower
The quiet waters creep ! —
But suddenly on some dark hour
Strange trouble shakes the deep :
Silent and monstrous thro' the gloom
Rises the Tidal Wave for doom.
Then woe for all who, like this Man,
Have built so near the Sea,
For what avails the human plan
When the new force flows free ?
Over their bounds the waters stream.
And Empires crash and despots scream.
A Bishop enters on the scene and holds parley
with the Emperor, and the agony is gradually
piled by the news of the cataclysm which is
sweeping on the broken-hearted monarch. Un-
generous France, pitiless as a sated harlot is, when
ruin overtaketh him whose hand hath loaded her
with gems, France, like Delilah, now betrays
her lord. Many-tongued, wild-hair'd, mad, with
fiery eyes and naked crimson limbs, upriseth the
old Spectre of the Red to stab unhappy France ;
the Chorus singing the fall of Paris. The bravery
of the Parisians, the fearlessness of death, the
hatred of capitulation, the heroism of the women,
and the whole terrible struggle of a wounded
and fallen but not ignoble foe, are told in fiery,
inspiriting language.
And Napoleon soliloquises thus :
O those dark years
Of Empire ! He who tames the tiger, and lies
Pillow'd upon his neck in a lone cave,
Is safer. Who could sleep on such a bed ?
Mine eyes were ever dry of the pure dew
God scatters on the lids of happy men ;
Watching with fascinated gaze the orbs.
Ring within ring of blank and bestial light,
102 ROBERT BUCHANAN
Where the wild fury slept : seeking all arts
To soothe the savage instinct in its throes '
Of passionate unrest. One cold hand held
Sweet morsels for the furious thing to lap, i
And with the other, held behind my back, i
I clutch'd the secret steel : oft, lest its teeth )
Should fasten on its master, cunningly «
Turning its wrath against the shapes that moved i
Outside its splendid lair ; until at last, l
Let forth to the mad light of War, it sprang I
Shrieking and sought to rend me. O thou beast ! ,'
Art thou so wild this day ? and dost thou thirst }
To fix on thine imperial ruler's throat ? I
Why, have I bidden thee ' down,' and thou hast crouch'd
Tamely as any hound ! Thou shalt crouch yet, '\
And bleed with shamefuller stripes ! "
And again :
O had I held the scourge in my right hand,
Tighten'd the yoke instead of loosening,
It had not been so ill with me as now !
But Pity found me with her sister Fear,
And lured me. He who sitteth on a throne
Should have no counsellors who come in tears ;
But rather that still voice within his brain,
Imperturbable as his own cold eyes
And viewless as his coldly flowing blood ;
Rather a heart as strong as the great heart
Driving the hot life through a hon's thews ;
Rather a will that moves to its desire
As steadfast as the silent-footed cloud. 1
What peevish humour did my mother mix !|
With that immortal ichor of our race
Which unpolluted fiU'd mine uncle's veins? ,|
He lash'd the world's Kings to his triumph-car i
And sat like marble while the fiery wheels
Dript blood beneath him : tho' the live earth shriek'd
Below him, he was calm, and like a god j
Cold to the eloquence of human tears,
Cold to the quick, cold as the Ught of stars, j
Cold as the hand of Death on the damp brow, ' i
Cold as Death brooding on a battlefield
In the white after-dawn,— from west to east
Royal he moved as the red wintry sun.
He never flatter'd Folly at his feet ;
'THE DRAMA OF KINGS' 103
He never sought to syrup Infamy ;
He, when the martyrs curst him, drew around him
The purple of his glory and passed on
Indifferently like Olympian Jove.
Yet, early or late, all fall.
No fruit can hang for ever on the tree.
Daily the tyrant and the martyr meet
Naked at Death's door, with the fatal mark
Both brows being branded. Doth the world then slay
Only its anarchs ? Doth the lightning flash
Smite Caesar and spare Brutus ? Nay, by heaven !
Rather the world keeps for its paracletes
Torture more subtle and more piteous doom
Than it dispenses to its torturers.
Tiberius, w^ith his foot on the world's neck,
Smileth his cruel smile and groweth grey.
Half dead already with the weight of years
Drinketh the death he is too frail to feel,
While in his noon of life the Man Divine
Hath died in anguish at Jerusalem.
Ah, old Theology, thou strikest home !
' Evil must suffer — Good ordains to suffer ' —
Sayst thou ? Did He then quaff His cup of tears
Freely, who might have dash'd it down, and ruled ?
The world was ready with an earthly crown,
And yet He wore it not. Ah, He was wise !
Had He but sat upon a human throne.
With all the kingdom's beggars at His feet.
And all its coffers open at His side.
He had died more shameful death, yea. He had fallen
Even as the Caesars. Rule the world with Love ?
Tame savage human nature with a kiss ?
Turn royal cheeks for the brute mob to smite ?
He knew men better, and He drew aside,
Ordain'd to do and suffer, not to reign.
After a Choric Interlude, in which the spirits
call upon the Nations to cry * Hold, enough !' to the
Teuton who stands with his spiked heel on the
neck of France, and in which Interlude The Perfect
State is painted, the scene is shifted to the camp
outside Paris, in which the Kaiser, the Chancellor,
104 ROBERT BUCHANAN
and others play a leading part. A prolonged
monologue of Bismarck is the leading force in
this scene— a monologue in which is pictured
the history of France and its conquest by the
Teuton :
Let France walk forth in sackcloth, let her wrists
Wear gyves ; set, too, a fool's-cap on her head,
With ' Glory ' for a label writ in blood ;
Then let a trumpeter before her go.
And let him sound, and between whiles aloud
Read the long record of enormities,
And ending each, strike sharply with the scourge
On the bare shoulders of the penitent ;
And let the little children of the earth
Follow and point, while good wives raise their hands,
And honest burghers nodding pipe in mouth.
Standing at doors with broad good-humour'd stare,
Mutter aloud, ' Thank God ! the world is free ! '
The hatred of the country of the Gaul, the Messa-
lina of the nations, * a thing of many lovers, luring
all, constant to none, adulterous with all, constant
to nothing but inconstancy,' is made apparent in
every line of the Chancellor's harangue; and in
contrast to the bitterness of his hatred-stenched
words, is heard the Chorus :
Blessed is the Light in his hand swinging,
Waving bright white pinions Uke a dove ;
Blessed is the Sword that he is bringing.
Such as holy spirits wield above ;
Such another brand arose in beauty
O'er the Gate of Paradise up-springing.
Mother, hearken— it is the Sword of Duty ;
Mother, hearken — it is the Light of Love !
Awakening, in one strong hand, O mother,
Take the shining weapon of the free.
And the sweet Lamp grasping in the other.
Lift it high that all the world may see.
•THE DRAMA OF KINGS' 105
Bought with bloody tears and bitterest sorrow,
They are thine for ever, martyr-mother !
Thou shalt wear them on some golden morrow,
Dawn shall come, the storm of God shall flee.
And because thy queenly robe is riven.
Thou shalt win a raiment star-en wrought—
Under the new dawn and the blue heaven
Thou shalt wear this raiment blood hath bought ;
Further, since thy heart hath cast off weakness,
For thy forehead shall a crown be given.
Mother, hearken— it is the Robe of Meekness ;
Mother, hearken — it is the Crown of Thought !
Bismarck, too, faces the thought of how quick
events fly and how rapidly the God of to-day
may lie in the dust to-morrow :
'Tis so easy
To cast down Idols ! The tide so pitilessly
Washes each name from the waste sands of time !
'Twas yestermorn the Man of Mysteries fell —
Whose turn comes next ?
There are many other scenes which it is impos-
sible even to hint at here. The drama contains
a whole system of political ethics, and a fairly
complete dramatic and poetic representation
of the various events of that time, when the
hearts of nations were rent, and the hatred
of nations blackened the face of Europe. No-
where has the poet caught the spirit of battle
better than in the description of the fighting
round Paris, conveyed through the medium of
the Chorus in variable metre. The movement
in this part of the drama is irresistible, and, in
more ways than one, this is the most essen-
tially dramatic part of it, and approaches nearest
to our conception of the choruses in the Greek
io6 ROBERT BUCHANAN
tragedies. Here are one or two passages which
suggest the spirit of action and change as de-
picted by the Chorus :
Onward, still nearing-
The eyes that flash on them ;
Onward unfearing,
Tho' the death-bolts crash on them,
Torn asunder
By lightning and thunder,
Though the black shells thicken
And rain red death on them,
Rent and stricken.
With Fire's fierce breath on them,
Still forward winning,
But ever thinning,
Onward they go,
Over dying and dead.
Leaving the snow
Not white but red.
And now like a torrent,
Furious, horrent.
From his lair in the dark
Springs the foe ; and hark !
Like the waters meeting
They gather and scream.
While drums are beating
And the death's-eyes gleam ! —
Like trees of the forest
When the storm-wind is sorest,
Like waves of the ocean
They meet in wild motion,
They reel, they advance.
They gather — they stand ;
Their wild weapons glance.
They are scattered like sand.
The light is glowing
Around blood-red.
The winds are blowing.
And the clouds are snowing
On the heaps of dead.
The white snows cover them.
The swords flash over them.
'THE DRAMA OF KINGS' 107
Death waits each way for thetn, —
O bless them, pray for them !
They are mingled like water,
They are grappled in slaughter,
Face to face hke wolves glaring,
With eyes fiercely staring,
Grappled and crying.
Rank within rank.
Dead, living, and dying,
Teuton and Frank :
Like a cloud struck by lightning
And rent into rain.
Darkening and brightening
They cover the plain.
And let us not omit this picture of France in
her downfall :
Who passeth there
Naked and bare,
A bloody sword upraising ?
Who with their moan
GUdes past alone.
At the black heaven gazing ?
Limbs thin and stark.
Eyes sunken and dark,
The hghtning round her leaping ?
What shape floats past
Upon the blast.
Crouching in pain and creeping ?
Behold ! her eyes to heaven are cast,
And they are red with weeping.
Say a prayer thrice
With Ups of ice :
'Tis she— yea, and no other ;
Look not at me
So piteously,
O France— O martyr mother !
O whither now,
With branded brow
And bleeding heart, art flying ?
Whither away ?
O stand ! O stay !
Tho' winds, waves, clouds are crying-
Dawn Cometh swift— 'twill soon be day —
The Storm of God is dying.
io8 ROBERT BUCHANAN
She will.not speak, ;
But, spent and weak, ']
Droops her proud head and goeth ; ,
She ! she crawls past,
Upon the blast, i
Whither no mortal knoweth — /
O'er fields of fight.
Where glimmer white f,
Death's steed and its gaunt rider— |
Thro' storm and snow.
Behold her go, i^
With never a friend beside her — ^^
O Shepherd of all winds that blow,
To Quiet Waters guide her ! |
There, for a space,
Let her sad face |
Fall in a tranquil mirror — j
There spirit-sore
May she count o'er ■,
Her sin, her shame, her error, — u
And read with eyes '
Made sweet and wise j
What her strong God hath taught her, i
With face grown fair I
And bosom bare
And hands made clean from slaughter —
O Shepherd, seek and find her there,
Beside some Quiet Water !
Amongst other scenes, the crowning of the Kaiser
in the Hall of Mirrors as Emperor of a United
Germany may be noted for the vigorous and pic-
turesque Song of the Sword, and for the oration
of the Kaiser on the future prosperity of his
country and of the peace of Europe ; the scene
concluding with the voices of the Chorus singing :
O God who leadest on the mortal race.
Whither they know not, through the wondrous years,
Thou mystery whose sad meaning none may trace,
Light on our eyes and Music in our ears,
Spirit that punishest and scatterest grace.
Lord of all losses and all doubts and fears,
'THE DRAMA OF KINGS' 109
Shedding upon the self-same hour and place
The doubt that maddens and the faith that cheers, —
Is there ever a smile upon a living face
That doth not mean some living face's tears ?
The Epilogue is spoken by Time, who re-
hearses the actions of the play, and draws the
moral :
' O foolish mortal race,' I hear ye cry,
' Who will, yet will not learn, and live, and take
Their birthright, and be free ! ' Ay, friends, indeed,
Man is a scholar eager indeed to learn,
But most forgetful having learn'd. His wits
Go wandering, his vacant eyes are caught
By foolish pictures and by idle gleams,
GUbly he learns and instantly forgets.
Again, again, and o'er and o'er again,
He tries the same old lesson, utters it
So loud and well that out of every star
Angels look out with gleaming eyes and hope ; —
But in a moment his bewildered brain
Shuts like a lantern, and is dark as night.
And perorates thus :
Ay, but I weary. O I weary. Sleep
Were better. Would the mighty play were o'er !
Again and yet again the same old scenes,
The same set speeches, the same blind despairs
And miserable hopes, the same sick fear
Of quitting the poor stage ; so that I lose
All count of act and scene and speech, confuse
Scenes present and scenes past, actors long still
With actors flaunting now their little hour.
How like each other all the players speak
Who play the tyrants ! how the kings and queens
Each follow each like bees from out a hive !
Still the old speeches, the old scenes, despite
The surface-change of costume and the trick
Of posture. Ay, I weary ! O to see
The great black Curtain fall, the music cease,
All darken, the House empty of its host
Of strange intelligences who behold
Our Drama, till the great Hand, creeping forth
In silence, one by one puts out the lights.
no ROBERT BUCHANAN
The Epilude contains the following ;
The Soul shall arise.
Power and its vanity,
Pride's black insanity,
Lust and its revelry
Shall with war's devilry
Pass from humanity.
The Soul shall arise.
The Soul shall arise.
Sweetness and sanity.
Slaying- all vanity.
Shall to love's holiness.
Meekness and lowliness.
Shepherd humanity.
The Soul shall arise.
A drama of some four hundred and fifty pages
is difficult to condense for the purpose before us,
but perhaps some glimpse has been obtained
of the 'motif and general type of action of this
play — not written, it need not be explained, for
the purposes of the stage. In nearly every
instance the various characters are made the
mouthpiece of a fiery rhetoric, the tempering and
the refining influences of the whole lying in the
hands of the Chorus, which breathes the essence
of the eternal lav/, in contrast to the dramatic
representation of points of view by the various
characters of the drama. As for its historical
accuracy, it is difficult to judge, for the flight
of less than thirty years seems to us to be
insufficient for the assumption of the role of the
estimating historian. It is only fair, however,
to the poet to add that, in a note to the 'Songs
of the Terrible Year,' republished in the collected
edition of his poems, he says: 'The "Songs,"
'THE DRAMA OF KINGS' iii
inasmuch as they formed a portion of "The Drama
of Kings," preceded by a long period the publica-
tion of Victor Hugo's series under the same
admirable title. "The Drama of Kings" was
written under a false conception, which no one
discarded sooner than the author; but portions
of it are preserved in the present collection,
because, although written during the same feverish
and evanescent excitement, they are the distinct
lyrical products of the author's mind, and perfectly
complete in themselves.'
CHAPTER V
'ST. ABE AND HIS SEVEN WIVES,' 'WHITE ROSE
AND RED,' WITH A NOTE ON CRITICISM
The year 1873 will always have a unique place
in the bibliographical history of Mr. Buchanan.
It was in this year that he risked a fall with the
Philistine, and succeeded even beyond his most
ambitious hope. ' The Ishmael of Song ' had the
courage to publish the two volumes, 'St. Abe
and his Seven Wives,' and ' White Rose and Red,'
anonymously, with the result that he soon had
his enemies in his net. With unanimous voice
those who had scourged the poet before joined in
the song of praise. 'Pest on Mr. Buchanan's
dreaming! to oblivion with all such aspiring
versifiers! here we have a poet indeed— here is
altogether the true characteristic of genius ! ' and
so on. The poet was a poet of patience. ' St. Abe '
ran rapidly into four or five editions, and then the
thunderbolt burst. The author of 'St. Abe' was
Robert Buchanan, the Ishmael of Song, the out-
cast Scotsman— he who sang of trulls and
costermongers — 'the Celtic madman'; and there
was sadness over the land.
The present writer cannot go back to those
112
'ST. ABE AND HIS SEVEN WIVES' 113
stirring days in the literary dovecots, but an
inquiry into the reception which was accorded by
the Press leaves him with the conclusion, that
the poet reached his high-water mark of con-
temporary praise in the testimony which was
accorded to him in his anonymous robes. From
the facts associated with the publication and
critical reception of these poems, and calling to
mind the aspect of the critics before and at the
time of their publication, and the recoil which
took place when the secret was out, are we to
infer that the golden era of criticism is but an
ephemeron floating in dreamland ?
There is a deadly want of the sense of humour
in attacking criticism as a whole. Burke said
something similar about charges against a whole
nation, and an analogous remark has a general
bearing. Criticism, we imagine, is no worse at
present— it is probably a great deal better— than
it was formerly. At any rate, the men and women
who criticise have in general more culture, and con-
siderably more special knowledge than we are wont
to associate with the past. We are not speaking
here of the greater lights, but of those who
constitute the general personnel of criticism. It
is the unevenness of the process which irritates,
the disinterested insight of one critic, and the
nebulous ignorance of another. To come into
genuine emotional relation with any work, a critic
must have sympathy; if he adds imagination to
this, he becomes as much an artist as the man he
attempts to criticise. But however sympathetic
H
114 ROBERT BUCHANAN
a critic may be, he tends to drift towards academic
methods — that is to say, he becomes, unconsciously
it maybe, a supporter of academies, for these exist
in letters as well as in painting. These academies
spring into existence through the ideals and
methods set by a new writer with novel ideals of art
finding a large following in the literary world, and
are at first subjected to the same organised suppres-
sion, at the hands of the older academies, that in
a later stage they extend to other new and revolu-
tionary, and therefore healthy, movements in letters,
which in their turn are by the grace of a number
of enthusiastic, yet generally less intelligent dis-
ciples, converted into academies. As we have said
in another place, 'Criticism has a tendency to
become the gospel of a sort of literary trades-
unionism ; all organisations have their con-
ventions and their creeds, offence against the
former being deemed in a sense more offensive
than a disputation of the latter.'
But it is idle to deny that criticism may be
viewed from a lower level than this, and in this
instance let us repeat what we were called upon
to say on another occasion : ^ * Though it be a mere
belated platitude, it is true, nevertheless, that all
criticism is futile which allows any unreasoned
aversion to the personality or point of view of the
author, or permits a prejudice against a former
utterance, to interfere with the unprejudiced
estimation of any literary effort. We must still be
travelling far in the wilderness of despair, when
1 'The Struggle for Success.'
*ST. ABE AND HIS SEVEN WIVES' 115
an author finds it impossible to have his work
presented fairly to the readers of literary criticism,
owing, it may be, to the fact that the virility of his
personality and the heaviness of his own critical
artillery have caused offence in the critical dove-
cots, and when it is an open secret that there are
men resplendent in the gilded uniforms of official
criticism, who day by day lie in wait for possible
opportunities to cast a slur on the literary re-
putations of those for whom they have a personal
dislike.'
We are not attempting to preach Utopianism,
nor do we fail to recognise the limitations of mere
humanity. It takes a lot of dosing to cure human
nature. This breaks out even in our prayers, and
adds not a little to the colour and the interest of
life. But this need not deter us from attempting to
come a little nearer to critical salvation. In this
instance we may recall an incident in the life
of David Hackston of Rathillet, that might be
used as a parable in any prospected literary bible.
Hackston was one of the leaders, with Balfour of
Burleigh, of the Covenanters at the battle of
Drumclog, and is associated in history with the
murder of Archbishop Sharp, but in this wise, that
having beforehand had many private disagreements
with Sharp, he refused to lay his hand upon him
in case it might be said that the deed sprang from
a personal and not a political dislike. *Verb. sap.'
For many of the worst aspects of literary
criticism the public has itself to blame. Reviews
that attempt a serious estimate of an author's
ii6 ROBERT BUCHANAN
work are voted dull and tasteless, and self-
preservation being the first law as of yore, the
result of such voting is evident. If the critic is
not witty, satirical, or impertinent on recurring
occasions, the public protests, with the result that
some one, generally a new and sensitive author,
must suffer— if not a new author, one that has
been given a bad name, and who is not allowed
even the benefit of a good hanging, but is put
upon an everlasting rack for the benefit of the
critic and the amusement of the public.
Critics are men in a world of men, not gods,
and in the long-run are neither better nor worse
than other men. They have generally more
sense of humour, more sense of perspective, and
although they have little gods of their own, they
have a healthy distaste for universal idolatry.
Accustomed to study many points of view, they
are at least catholic, if not profound, and are
often astoundingly generous. They, at least,
keep us from fanaticism, and are keen to
observe, when we parade our gorgeous robes,
if there is a button loose.
But literary dressmaking may run to extremes,
and so may the profession of literary housemaid.
The long bamboo, with the feathered head, is
useful enough occasionally, but to depend upon it
exclusively is not to bring us to any better vision
of what we are regarding. The housemaid in
literature is curiously enough often a person of
great culture, a person, in fact, of large historical
knowledge, and may be a poet of distinction
'ST. ABE AND HIS SEVEN WIVES' 117
and a classicist of fame ; but history, poetry,
philology will not boil the pot, and the profession
of literary housemaid will at least secure for
him (for as in University theatricals, the 'she' is
a 'he') a most healthy-looking yearly income.
Quick to discern spots in the sun and dust on
the chariot-wheel— that is to say, printers' errors
and grammatical slips— he is able by his adroit-
ness, never-ending wit, and facility of grammar,
to enlarge the spots and the dust to grievous
literary sins; and the public, always ready to
forgive a man if he be witty and avowedly clever,
preserves for him the tenderest morsels and the
chief place at the feast. We for our own part
would not dismiss him for worlds, but we must
remember that his natural base as housemaid
is the pantry. When he has taken off his apron
and changed his cloth, he may have a chair
in the library.
With regard to criticism as applied to Mr.
Buchanan, as we have hinted before, the blame
rests not wholly with the poet's critics. Some
time ago the present writer was expressing
himself in language of a similar nature to the
above, when a well-known London critic inter-
rupted him with the remark that Mr. Buchanan
was only being paid back with interest for the
amount of criticism he had bestowed on an un-
willing public. This, of course, gave the whole
matter away, for there can surely be no justifica-
tion for a professed critic to diminish the value
of his own work by unfair methods of criticism.
Ii8 ROBERT BUCHANAN
because the man he is dealing with practises the
art himself. We are not attempting to justify Mr.
Buchanan's numerous and often highly flavoured
and irrelevant literary utterances. They must
be judged on the same footing as that which
we have been bold enough to suggest as the
proper basis of criticism. And it is as well to
remember that Mr. Buchanan is not, after all,
the inexorable person he is often made out. For
one piece of early criticism the poet made
a withdrawal and an apology that was both
straightforward and noble. In the case of an
old enemy he said: 'That I should ever have
underrated the exquisite work of Dante Gabriel
Rossetti is simply a proof of the incompetency
of all criticism, however honest, which is con-
ceived adversely, hastily, and from an un-
sympathetic point of view; but that I should
have ranked myself for the time being with the
Philistines, and encouraged them to resist an
ennobling and refining literary influence, must
remain to me a matter of permanent regret,' and
in the same breath dedicates to the dead poet
his greatest work of fiction, * God and the Man.'
I would have snatch'd a bay leaf from thy brow,
Wronging the chaplet on an honoured head ;
In peace and tenderness I bring you now
A lily-flower instead.
The first of the three volumes we have now
to consider, 'St. Abe and his Seven Wives,'
is a satire on the futility of Mormonism, the
embodiment of the doctrines and politics of
'ST. ABE AND HIS SEVEN WIVES' 119
the Latter Day Saints. The poem has been
made the medium of expressing the poet's
admirable sense of humour, a humour touched
with that breath of tenderness which is seldom
wanting in Mr. Buchanan's work. In this poem
the poet has allowed himself the free use of the
spirit of comedy in poetry. A critic who named
James Russell Lowell as the possible author,
gave it as his opinion that the substance of it
was as strong as anything in the entire range
of English satirical literature. It is dramatic,
the humour is never forced, the local colouring
is painted freely and with artistic success, the
metres are eminently suited to the dramatic
purposes of the work, and as for its effect on
Mormonism itself, we can only quote what the
* Spectator ' of that day said : * We believe that
this new book will paralyse Mormon resistance
far more than any amount of speeches in Con-
gress or messages from President Grant, by
bringing home to the minds of the millions the
ridiculous, diabolic side of the peculiar institu-
tion. The canto called "The Last Epistle of St.
Abe to the Polygamist," with its humorous narra-
tive of the way in which the Saint, sealed to
seven wives, fell in love with one, and thence-
forward could not abide the jealousy felt by the
other six, will do more to weaken the last
defence of Mormonism — that, after all, the women
like it — than a whole realm of narratives about
the discontent in Utah.'
It is not a poem that lends itself easily to
120 ROBERT BUCHANAN
quotation, but we may take one or two passages
more isolated than the rest which may suggest
the spirit of the context.
The poem opens with the declamatory sorrow
of Joe Wilson in having his fiancee spirited
away by one of the Apostles — the Apostle Hiram
Higginson. He is very wroth with all the world,
and especially with women :
Women is women ! Thet 's their style —
Talk reason to them and they '11 bile ;
But baste 'em soft as any pig-eon,
With lies and rubbish and religion ;
Don't talk of flesh and blood and feeling,
But Holy Ghost and blessed healing ;
Don't name things in too plain a way,
Look a heap warmer than you say,
Make 'em believe they 're serving true
The Holy Spirit and not you,
Prove all the world but you 's damnation,
And call your kisses jest salvation ;
Do this, and press 'em on the sly,
You 're safe to win 'em. Jest you try !
He reproaches his Cissy as to her change of
manner to him, and suspecting physical distress,
has his interrogation smothered by the following :
It ain't my stomach, nor my head,
It ain't my flesh, it ain't my skin.
It 's holy spirits here within !
He discovers her secret, and vowing vengeance,
the woman implores mercy :
' Spare him ! ' I cried, and gev a shout,
' What 's this yer shine you air about —
What cuss is this that I jest see
With that big book upon your knee.
Cuddling up close and making sham
To read a heap of holy flam ? '
Her brothers have little sympathy with the
•ST. ABE AND HIS SEVEN WIVES' I2i
Apostle, which fact is hinted in the following
lines :
We 've done our best, don't hev a doubt,
To keep the old Apostle out :
We 've trained the dogs to seize and bite him,
We 've got up ghosts at night to fright him,
Doctor'd his hoss and so upset him.
Put tickle-grass in bed to fret him,
Jalap'd his beer and snuffed his tea too,
Gunpowder in his pipe put free too ;
A dozen times we 've well-nigh kill'd him,
We 've skeer'd him, shaken him, and spill'd him.
In the City of the Saints, whither we are led by
the next canto, we have a dialogue between the
Stranger and several of the Bishops. Here are
some of Bishop Peter's views :
stranger, I 'm with you there, indeed :— it 's been the best of
nusses ;
Polygamy is to our creed what meat and drink to us is.
Destroy that notion any day, and all the rest is brittle.
And Mormondom dies clean away like one in want of vittle.
It 's meat and drink, it 's life, it 's power ! to heaven its breath doth
win us !
It warms our vitals every hour ! it 's Holy Ghost within us !
Jest lay that notion on the shelf, and all life's springs are frozen !
I 've half-a-dozen wives myself, and wish I had a dozen !
We hear of St. Abe, who seems to have fallen
in the estimation of his brother Bishops :
And yet how well I can recall the time when Abe was younger —
Why not a chap among us all went for the notion stronger.
When to the mother-country he was sent to wake the sinning,
He shipp'd young lambs across the sea by flocks — he was so
winning ;
O but he had a lively style, describing saintly blisses !
He made the spirit pant and smile, and seek seraphic kisses !
How the bright raptures of the Saint fresh lustre seemed to
borrow,
While black and awful he did paint the one-wived sinner's sorrow !
Each woman longed to be his bride, and by his side to slumber —
' The more the blesseder ! ' he cried, still adding to the number.
122 ROBERT BUCHANAN
We catch dramatic and picturesque glimpses of
life in the Salt Lake City, and of the pleasures
of unlimited domesticity. The calm resignation
of the wives, a resignation evidently born of
expediency, is pictured thus :
When in their midst serenely walks their Master and their Mentor,
They 're hush'd, as when the Prophet stalks down holy church's
centre !
They touch his robe, they do not move, those blessed wives and
mothers,
And, when on one he shineth love, no envy fills the others ;
They know his perfect saintUness, and honour his affection—
And, if they did object, I guess he 'd settle that objection !
As for St. Abe's wives, we have here quite a
subject for contrast :
BISHOP JOSS.
It ain't a passionate flat like Abe can manage things in your way !
They teased that most etarnal babe, till things were in a poor way.
I used to watch his thorny bed, and bust my sides with laughter.
Once give a female hoss her head you '11 never stop her after.
It 's one thing getting seal'd, and he was mighty fond of Sealing,
He 'd all the human heat, d' ye see, without the saintly feeling.
His were the wildest set of girls that ever drove man silly.
Each full of freaks and fal-de-lals, as frisky as a filly.
One puU'd this way, and t' other that, and made his life a mockery,
They 'd all the feelings of a cat scampaging 'mong the crockery.
Bishop Joss had an aunt, Tabitha Brooks, a
virgin under fifty. 'She warn't so much for
pretty looks, but she was wise and thrifty ' :
She 'd seen the vanities of life, was good at 'counts and brewin' —
Thinks I, ' Here 's just the sort of Wife to save poor Abe from ruin.'
He bestows her on the unwilling St. Abe :
And round his neck she blushing hung, part holding, part caressing,
And murmur'd with a faltering tongue, ' O Abe, I '11 be a blessing.'
'ST. ABE AND HIS SEVEN WIVES' 123
Under the (at that time) six, St. Abe has a
mournful career :
His house was peaceful as a church, all solemn, still, and saintly ;
And yet he 'd tremble at the porch, and look about him faintly ;
And tho' the place was all his own, with hat in hand he 'd enter,
Like one thro' public buildings shown, soft treading down the
centre ;
until the arrival of Jason Jones's child, and then,
his soul opening to love for the first time, storms
brew in the household, and St. Abe is unhappier
than before.
There 's vinegar in Abe's pale face enough to sour a barrel,
Goes crawling up and down the place, neglecting his apparel,
Seems to have lost all heart and soul, has fits of absence shocking —
His home is like a rabbit's hole when weasels come a-knocking.
And now and then, to put it plain, while falling daily sicker,
I think he tries to float his pain by copious goes of liquor.
The next canto finds the metre varied, and in
it we have drawn with characteristic touch a
picture of the individual character of St. Abe's
household, and of the combined enmity that the
six showed to the newly installed wife. Follow-
ing this is a canto which gives us a view of the
political and physical geography of Utah, with a
glimpse, as we pass, of the Red-skin in his drunken
degeneracy, and Jonathan's attitude towards him.
Poor devil of the plains, now spent and frail.
Hovering wildly on the fatal trail,
Pass on ! — there lies thy way and thine abode,
Get out of Jonathan thy master's road.
Where ? anywhere ! — he 's not particular where.
So that you clear the road, he does not care ;
Off, quick ! clear out ! ay, drink your fill and die ;
And, since the Earth rejects you, try the Sky !
And see if He, who sent your white-faced brother
To hound and drive you from this world you bother,
Can find a corner for you in another !
124 ROBERT BUCHANAN
The sermonising of the prophet Brigham in the
synagogue, with which the poem is next con-
cerned, like the following two cantos, defies
judicious extraction. The sermon is punctuated
by Feminine Whispers, like a subdued chorus in
the Greek tragedies. For example :
THE PROPHET.
Sisters and brothers who love the right,
Saints whose hearts are divinely beating,
Children rejoicing in the light,
I reckon this is a pleasant meeting.
Where 's the face with a look of grief? —
Jehovah 's with us and leads the battle ;
We 've had a harvest beyond belief.
And the signs of fever have left the cattle ;
All still blesses the holy life
Here in the land of milk and honey.
FEMININE WHISPERS.
Brother Shuttleworth's seventeenth wife, . . .
Her with the heer brushed up so funny !
THE PROPHET.
Out of Egypt hither we flew.
Through the desert and rocky places ;
The people murmur'd, and all look'd blue.
The bones of the martyr'd filled our traces.
Mountain and valley we crawl'd along.
And every morning our hearts beat quicker.
Our flesh was weak, but our souls were strong.
And we 'd managed to carry some kegs of hquor.
At last we halted on yonder height,
Just as the sun in the west was blinking.
FEMININE WHISPERS.
Isn't J edge Hawkins's last a fright? . . .
I 'm suttin that Brother Abe 's been drinking !
THE PROPHET.
That night, my lambs, in a wondrous dream,
I saw the gushing of many fountains ;
Soon as the morning began to beam,
Down we went from yonder mountains.
*ST. ABE AND HIS SEVEN WIVES' 125
Found the water just where I thought,
Fresh and good, though a trifle gritty,
Pitch'd our tents in the plain, and wrought
The site and plan of the Holy City.
' Pioneers of the blest,' I cried,
' Dig, and the Lord will bless each spadeful.'
FEMININE WHISPERS.
Brigham 's sealed to another Bride . . .
How worn he 's gittin' ! he 's aging dreadful.
THE PROPHET.
But I hear some awakening spirit cry,
' Labour is labour, and all men know it ;
But what is pleasure ? ' and I reply,
Grace abounding, and wives to show it.
Holy is he beyond compare
Who tills his acres, and takes his blessing,
Who sees around him everywhere
Sisters soothing, and babes caressing,
And his delight is Heaven's as well,
For swells he not the ranks of the chosen ?
FEMININE WHISPERS.
Martha is growing a handsome gel. . . .
Three at a birth ?— that makes the dozen.
The finest sight is a man of worth, j
Never tired of increasing his quiver.
He sits in the light of perfect grace I
With a dozen cradles going together !
FEMININE WHISPERS. j
The babby 's growing black in the face ! ]
Carry him out— it 's the heat of the weather !
The falling of the thunderbolt— in other words,
the elopement of St. Abe with his own wife— is
dramatically conveyed to us in the assembly of the
Prophet and his Elders :
And the lesser lights all holy,
Round the Prophet turning slowly.
126 ROBERT BUCHANAN
Raised their reverend heads and hoary,
Thinking-, ' To the Prophet, glory !
Hellelujah, veneration !
Reckon that he licks creation ! '
In the midst of their meditations comes a
murmur and a tumult, and a voice, * Brother Abe 's
skedaddled ! ' followed by the entry of
Six sad female figures moaning,
Trembling-, weeping, and intoning-,
* We are widows broken-hearted —
Abraham Clewson has departed ! '
While the Saints again upleaping
Joined their voices to the weeping,
For a moment the great Prophet
Trembled, and look'd dark as Tophet.
But the cloud pass'd over lightly.
' Cease ! ' he cried, but sniffled slightly,
' Cease this murmur and be quiet —
Dead men won't awake with riot.
'Tis indeed a loss stupendous —
When will Heaven his equal send us ?
Speak, then, of our brother cherish'd,
Was it fits by which he perish'd?
Or did Death come even quicker.
Thro' a bolting horse or kicker ? '
At the Prophet's question scowling,
All the Wives stood moaning, howling,
Crying wildly in a fever,
' Oh the villain ! the deceiver ! '
But the oldest stepping boldly.
Curtsying to the Session coldly.
Cried in voice like cracking thunder,
* Prophet, don't you make a blunder !
Abraham Clewson isn't dying —
Hasn't died, as you 're implying ;
No ! he 's not the man, my brothers,
To die decently hke others !
Worse ! he 's from your cause revolted —
Run away ! skedaddled ! bolted !
After this * crusher truly ' come meditation and
'ST. ABE AND HIS SEVEN WIVES' 127
prayer, and the reading of the Last Epistle of
St. Abe to the Polygamists, beginning :
Brother, Prophet of the Light !— don't let my state distress you,
While from the depths of darkest night I cry, ' Farewell ! God
bless you ! '
1 don't deserve a parting tear, nor even a malediction,
Too weak to fill a saintly sphere, I yield to my affliction ;
Down like a cataract I shoot into the depths below you ;
While you stand wondering and mute, my last adieu I throw you ;
Commending to your blessed care my well-beloved spouses.
My debts (there 's plenty and to spare to pay them), lands, and
houses,
My sheep, my cattle, farm and fold, yea, all by which I 've thriven :
These to be at the auction sold, and to my widows given.
Bless them ! to prize them at their worth was far beyond my merit,
Just make them think me in the earth, a poor departed spirit.
I couldn't bear to say good-bye, and see their tears up-starting ;
I thought it best to pack and fly without the pain of parting !
In a serio-comic monologue the Saint tells of
his fall from glory, and of the discovery of the
essential monogamy of his nature ; how he grew
to be fond of each wife individually instead
of loving them in a body with a vague altruism :
Each got to think me, don't you see,— so foolish was the
feeling, —
Her own especial property, which all the rest were stealing !
listen to the tale of dread, thou Light that shines so brightly—
Virtue 's a horse that drops down dead if overloaded slightly !
She 's all the will, she wants to go, she 'd carry every tittle ;
But when you see her flag and blow, just ease her of a little !
One wife for me was near enough, two might have fixed me neatly.
Three made me shake, four made me puff, ^ve settled me com-
pletely, —
But when the sixth came, though I still was glad and never
grumbled,
1 took the staggers, kick'd, went ill, and in the traces tumbled !
Instead of keeping well apart the Flesh and Spirit, brother,
And making one with cunning art the nigger of the other,
128 ROBERT BUCHANAN
They muddle and confuse the two, they mix, and twist and
mingle,
So that it takes a cunning view to make out either single.
The Soul gets mingled with the Flesh beyond all separation,
The Body holds it in a mesh of animal sensation.
The epistle contains much ' common ' wisdom on
the treatment of women, and on the limitations of
human endeavour in the teeth of unlimited female
emotions, jealousies, and fears.
To a woman's arms don't fall, as if you meant to stay there.
Just come as if you 'd made a call, and idly found your way there ;
Don't praise her too much to her face, but keep her calm and
quiet, —
Most female illnesses take place thro' far too warm a diet ;
Unto her give your fleshy kiss, calm, kind, and patronising,
Then — soar to your own sphere of bliss, before her heart gets
rising !
Don't fail to let her see full clear, how in your saintly station
The Flesh is but your nigger here obeying your dictation ;
And tho' the Flesh be e'er so warm, your Soul the weakness
smothers
Of loving any female form much better than the others !
St. Abe divides the world into Saints so * high in
bliss that they the Flesh can smother, and Souls
inferior,' and concludes with the eruption that
rose on the annexation of the maidenly No. 7.
But when the pretty smiling face came blossoming and blooming.
Like sunshine in a shady place the fam'ly Vault illuming,
It naturally made them grim to see its sunny colour.
While like a row of tapers dim by daylight, they grew duller.
And summing up the discovery of his love, his
doubts, his determination, and his flight, he says :
Such as I am, she takes me, though ; and after years of trying,
From Eden hand in hand we go, hke our first parents flying ;
And like the bright sword that did chase the first of sires and
mothers,
Shines dear Tabitha's flaming face, surrounded by the others :
'ST. ABE AND HIS SEVEN WIVES' 129
Shining it threatens there on high, above the gates of Heaven,
And faster at the sight we fly, in naked shame, forth-driven.
Nothing of all my worldly store I take, 'twould be improper,
I go a pilgrim, strong and poor, without a single copper.
Unto my Widows I outreach my property completely.
There 's modest competence for each, if it is managed neatly.
That, Brother, is a labour left to your sagacious keeping ; —
Comfort them, comfort the bereft ! I 'm good as dead and
sleeping !,
A fallen star, a shooting light, a portent and an omen,
A moment passing on the sight, thereafter seen by no men !
I go, with backward-looking face, and spirit rent asunder.
O may you prosper in your place, for you 're a shining wonder !
So strong, so sweet, so mild, so good !— by Heaven's dispen-
sation,
Made Husband to a multitude and Father to a nation !
May all the saintly life ensures increase and make you stronger !
Humbly and penitently yours,
A. CLEWSON {Saint no longer).
The poem ends with a canto in a varied metre,
telling of St. Abe's monogamous life on the * Farm
in the Valley,' in which we see St. Abe at rest at
last after the 'Sturm und Drang' of his exten-
sively matrimonialised existence, and in those
peaceful surroundings we learn of the comfortable
disposal of his deserted wives in other matrimonial
circles ; Tabitha, the grey mare of budding sixty,
ending her career in the condition of Free Love.
Of other qualities of the poem, the descriptions of
scenery, always a strong arm of Mr. Buchanan's
work, are distinguished and accurate. It is indeed
difficult to discriminate our appreciation between
the dramatist and the stage-carpenter. The poem
is dedicated *To Old Dan Chaucer,' whom he
greets thus :
Honest Chaucer, thee I greet
In a verse with blithesome feet,
And, tho' modern bards may stare,
Crack a passing joke with Care !
I
130 ROBERT BUCHANAN
Take a merry song and true
Fraught with inner meanings too !
Goodman Dull may croak and scowl : —
Leave him hooting to the owl !
Tight-laced Prudery may turn
Angry back with eyes that burn,
Reading on from page to page
Scrofulous novels of the age !
Fools may frown and humbugs rail,
Not for them I tell the Tale ;
Not for them, but souls like thee,
Wise old English JOLLITY!
In the same year was published 'White Rose
and Red,' a love-story, by the author of 'St. Abe.'
Although still in the New World, the poet, in this
volume, deals with an entirely different aspect of
affairs from that which held his attention in 'St.
Abe.' We spring at once from the sprightliness
of Comedy to the dignity of Tragedy. Comedy
there is too, for the two spirits run hand in hand,
occasionally losing each other, as when Tragedy
soars at white heat to the gateway of the gods,
leaving Comedy with blinking eyes gazing upward ;
or when, Comedy springing forward with irre-
sponsible joy, ' humanely malign,' Tragedy seeks
the solitude of its own despair.
The contrasts of the poem are drawn on two
distinct backgrounds, those of an Indian village
and a lowland town. First :
the Land, where the lian-flower
Burgeons the trapper's forest bower.
Where o'er his head the acacia sweet
Shaketh her scented locks in the heat.
Where the hang-bird swings to a blossoming-cloud,
And the bobolink sings merry and loud ?
'WHITE ROSE AND RED 131
the Land where the golden Day
Flowers into glory and glows away,
While the night springs up, as an Indian girl
Clad in purple and hung with pearl !
And the white Moon's heaven rolls apart.
Like a bell-shaped flower with a golden heart,— j
and second, the village of Drowsietown :
O so drowsy ! In a daze
Sweating 'mid the golden haze,
With its smithy Uke an eye
Glaring bloodshot at the sky.
And its one white row of street
Carpeted so green and sweet,
And the loungers smoking still
Over gate and window-sill ;
Nothing coming, nothing going,
Locusts grating, one cock crowing,
Few things moving up or down,
All things drowsy — Drowsietown !
The story tells of how one, Eureka Hart,
belonging to a body of
Thrifty men, devout believers.
Of the tribe of human heavers ;
Life to them, with years increasing.
Was an instinct never-ceasing
To build dwellings multifarious
In the fashion called gregarious.
To be honest in their station,
And increase the population
Of the beavers !
while out hunting in the far north, is surprised
and captured by a bevy of Indian squaws and
maidens, and how, carried a prisoner to their
village, he is received with courtesy by the tribe.
He prolongs his stay there, and one of the maidens
conceives a passion for him. From a long dream
of sensuous delight, he wakes to a morning of
grey ennui ; and, leaving a broken-hearted love
132 ROBERT BUCHANAN
behind, he returns to Drowsietown. We are told
how, under the influence of his environment,
he becomes accustomed to, and embraces the
ease of, civilisation, and is married to a girl of
the town. After months of waiting, the neglected
Indian girl sets out on a long journey south, with
as guide only a scrap of paper on which Eureka's
name and address is written. She passes through
the great snowstorm, and arrives, collapsed and
stricken with illness, at Eureka Cottage; the
whole poem concluding with a picture of her
death in the midst of the shadow, in which the
intensity and unselfishness of her passion for
Eureka is shown.
Nowhere has the poet attempted so much
word-painting to further our impression of the
grandeur and warmth of scenery than in the
Indian part of this love-story. And, besides in-
dividual passages concerned with descriptions
of scenery, the poet has been able to endow
the atmosphere of the whole poem with a
warmth, a perfume, and a movement, that seem
to suggest an Indian summer. From an artistic
point of view, the poet has therefore accom-
plished nothing short of a triumph.
As for the characters in the story. Eureka Hart
is— well, intellectually— nothing.
Further in his soul receding:,
Certain signs of beaver-breeding
Kept his homely wits in see-saw ;
Part was Jacob, part was Esau ;
No revolter ; a believer
In the dull creed of the beaver ;
'WHITE ROSE AND RED* 133 !
strictly moral ; seeing beauty
In the ploughshare line of duty :
Loving nature as beasts love it, j
Eating, drinking, tasting of it, \
With no wild poetic gleaming,
Seldom shaping, never dreaming ; I
Beaver with a wandering craze, ]
Walked Eureka in God's ways. i
He was neither brilliant, bright, frantic, nor
romantic, but he had in his veins a nomad desire
to be ever wandering, racing, * bird-like, wave-like, i
chased or chasing.' His soul only became a living |
force worthy of the consideration of a poet, under |
the influence of the Indian maiden.
She was a shapely creature, tall, j
And slightly form'd, but plump withal,—
Shapely as deer are— finely fair j
As creatures nourish'd by warm air, '.
And luscious fruits that interfuse j
Something of their own glorious hues, \
And the rich odour that perfumes them, I
Into the body that consumes them. ^
She had drunk richness thro' and thro' i
As the great flowers drink light and dew ; !
And she had caught from wandering streams |
Their restless motion ; and strange gleams
From snakes and flowers that glow'd around j
Had stolen into her blood, and found i
Warmth, peace, and silence ; and, in brief,
Her looks were bright, beyond belief
Of those who meet in the green ways
The rum-wreck'd squaws of later days. ]
And as for her costume
All the merit of her dress,
Was that they form'd for eyes to see 1
Nimbus enough of drapery ">
And ornament, just to suggest i
The costume that became her best — j
Her own brave beauty. She just wore
Enough for modesty—no more.
She was not, as white beauties seem,
134 ROBERT BUCHANAN
Smother'd, like strawberries in cream,
With folds of silk and linen. No !
The Indians wrap their babies so,
And we our women ; who, alas !
Waddle about upon the grass,
Distorted, shapeless, smother'd, choking-.
Hideous, and horribly provoking,
Because we long, without offence.
To tear the mummy-wrappings thence,
And show the human form enchanting
That 'neath the fatal folds is panting !
For the details of the love-story, what new is
there to record of love ? —
As it was in the beginning,
Is, and ever shall be !
Loving, and love for the winning.
Love and the soul set free.
(An invocation like this is
Need not be over- wise ;
Who shall interpret kisses ?
What is the language of eyes ?)
Lips, and hps to kiss them ;
Eyes, and eyes to behold ;
Hands, and hands to press them ;
Arms, and arms to enfold.
The love that waits for the winning.
The love that ever is free.
That was in the world's beginning,
Is, and ever shall be !
As the story indicates, there are two Nuptial
Songs— the one, the song of the children of Nature ;
the other, the song of the children of Drowsie-
town. Here is the first :
Where were they wedded ? In no Temple of ice
Built up by human fingers ;
The floor was strewn with flowers of fair device.
The wood-birds were the singers.
'WHITE ROSE AND RED' 135
Who was the Priest ? The priest was the still Soul,
Calm, gentle, and low-spoken ;
He read a running brooklet like a scroll,
And trembled at the token.
What was the service ? 'Twas the service read
When Adam's faith was plighted ;
The tongue was silent, but the lips rose-red
In silence were united.
Who saw it done ? The million starry eyes
Of one ecstatic Heaven.
Who shared the joy ? The flowers, the trees, the skies
Thrill'd as each kiss was given.
Who was the Bride ? A spirit strong and true,
Beauteous to human seeing, —
Soft elements of flesh, air, fire, and dew,
Blent in one Rose of being.
What was her consecration ? Innocence !
Pure as the wood-doves round her.
Nothing she knew of rites— the strength intense
Of God and Nature found her.
And for contrast we hear the second :
Where were they wedded ? In the holy house
Built up by busy fingers.
All Drowsietown was quiet as a mouse
To hear the village singers.
Who was the Priest ? 'Twas Parson Pendon, dress'd
In surplice to the knuckles.
Wig powder'd, snowy cambric on his breast.
Silk stockings, pumps, and buckles.
What was the service ? 'Twas the solemn, stale.
Old-fashioned, English measure :
' Wilt thou this woman take ? and thou this male ? '
' I will '— * I will '—with pleasure.
Who saw it done ? The countless rustic eyes
Of folk around them thronging.
Who shared the joy? The matrons with soft sighs.
The girls with bright looks longing.
136 ROBERT BUCHANAN
Who was the Bride ? Sweet Phoebe, dress'd in clothes
As white as she who wore 'em,
Sweet-scented, self-possess'd,— one bright White Rose
Of virtue and decorum.
Her consecration ? Peaceful self-control,
And modest circumspection —
The sweet old service softening her soul
To formulised affection.
Surveying with calm eyes the long, straight road
Of matrimonial being,
She wore her wedding clothes, trusting in God,
Domestic, and far-seeing.
With steady little hand she sign'd her name.
Nor trembled at the venture.
What did the Bridegroom ? Blush'd with sheepish shame,
Endorsing the indenture.
It is not in our power to quote the many passages
of beauty which the poem contains, but the
following will indicate some of its moods :
The swift is wheeling and gleaming.
The brook is brown in its bed.
Rain from the cloud is streaming.
And the Bow bends overhead.
The charm of the winter is broken ! the last of the spell is said !
The eel in the pond is quick'ning.
The grayling leaps in the stream—
What if the clouds are thick'ning ?
See how the meadows gleam !
The spell of the winter is shaken ; the world awakes from a dream !
The fir puts out green fingers,
The pear-tree softly blows,
The rose in her dark bower lingers,
But her curtains will soon unclose,
The lilac will shake her ringlets over the blush of the rose.
The swift is wheeling and gleaming,
The woods are beginning to ring,
Rain from the cloud is streaming ; —
There, where the Bow doth cling,
Summer is smiling afar off, over the shoulder of Spring !
'WHITE ROSE AND RED' 137
Phoebe, the wife,
In her very style of looking
There was cognisance of cooking !
From her very dress were peeping
Indications of housekeeping !
And if the poem contained nothing else, the
description of The Great Snow would entitle it to
a very high place amongst poems of Nature.
From the first breath of the east wind till the time
came when not a bird stayed, nor a team could stir,
there is detailed all the various changes of the
storm, leading up to the grand climax. The falling
flakes come first, the vanguard of the Snow ; then
'faint of breath and thin of limb, Hoar-Frost, like
a maiden's ghost, nightly o'er the marshes crost in
the moonlight.' Then comes the Phantom Fog,
sitting sullen in the swamp, ' scowling with a blood-
shot eye, till the North Wind, with a shout, thrust
his pole and poked him out,' and then the main
Army of the Snow :
Black as Erebus afar,
Blotting sun, and moon, and star.
Drifting, in confusion driven.
Screaming, straggling, rent and riven,
Whirling, wailing, blown afar
In an awful wind of War,
Dragging drifts of death beneath,
With a melancholy groan.
While the fierce Frost set his teeth,
Rose erect, and waved them on !
Multitudinous and vast.
Legions after legions passed.
Still the air behind was drear
With new legions coming near ;
Still they waver'd, wander'd on,
Glimmer'd, trembled, and were gone.
138 ROBERT BUCHANAN
While the drift grew deeper, deeper,
On the roofs and at the doors,
While the wind awoke each sleeper
With its melancholy roars.
Once the Moon looked out, and lo
Blind against her face the Snow
Like a wild white grave-cloth lay,
Till she shuddering crept away.
Then thro' darkness like the grave,
On and on the legions drave.
At the melting of the snow :
Underneath her death-shroud thick
Like a body buried quick,
Heaved the Earth, and thrusting hands
Crack'd the ice and brake her bands.
Heaven, with face of watery woe,
Watched the resurrection grow.
All the night, bent to be free,
In a sickening agony.
Struggled Earth. With silent tread
From his cold seat at her head
Rose the Frost, and northward sto
To his cavern near the pole.
When the bloodshot eyes of Morn
Opened in the east forlorn,
'Twas a dreary sight to see
Blotted waste and watery lea,
All the beautiful white plains
Blurr'd with black'ning seams and stains,
All the sides of every hill
Scarr'd with thaw and dripping chill.
All the cold sky scowling black
O'er the soaking country track ?
There a sobbing everywhere
In the miserable air.
And a thick fog brooding low.
O'er the black trail of the snow ;
While the Earth, amid the gloom
Still half buried in her tomb.
Swooning lay, and could not rise,
With dark film upon her eyes.
In many ways * White Rose and Red ' deserves
to be considered in the first line of the poet's
'WHITE ROSE AND RED' 139
work. It lacks the intellectualism of ' The City of
Dream,' and the mystic realism of 'The Book
of Orm,' but considering it as a pure piece of
word-painting, and merely from an artistic and a
sensuous point of view, we should feel inclined
to place it, if not first, very high in the estimating
scale. The contrasts are obtained not only by
variety of colouring and tone in the painting of the
atmosphere, but also in the striking blending of
the elements of Comedy and Tragedy ; and there is
nothing but the highest literary success obtained
in the contrasting of the simple, irresponsible,
trusting virtue of the red rose, with the equally
simple, yet conventional, virtuosity of the white.
The red rose is a child of mere sensuous emotions,
the handmaiden of the flowers, the trees, the river,
and the sky. The white rose is parochial excel-
lence personified, whose ever keen eye is on the pro-
tection of her virtue. What the red rose deemed
holy were the winds and the waves, the moon and
the stars, the waters and God's hunting-field ; for
the white, the holy things were all to be gained
under the shadow of the nearest belfry.
CHAPTER VI
'BALDER THE BEAUTIFUL' AND 'THE EARTHQUAKE"
A * Skaal ' to the gods has always been a favourite
song of Mr. Buchanan's. He has sung of *Ades,
King of Hell,' ' Selene the Moon,' and ' Iris the
Rainbow/ and on the grave of the older gods
must eventually raise a tremulous wail to the
newer gods, whose coming darkened the groves
of Pan. In 'Balder the Beautiful' the rimes of
Scandinavian mythology have supplied the poet
with a new 'Song of Divine Death,' and round
the Northern god he has wreathed the songs of
despair at the ceaseless coming of the swift-
winged Angel. This generation has seen at least
three Balders — the ' Balder Dead ' of Matthew
Arnold, the 'Balder' of Sydney Dobell, and the
* Balder the Beautiful ' of Robert Buchanan. Mr.
Dobell's tragedy has no bearing on the Balder
of Deity, and the following note of the poet con-
tains a reference to Mr. Arnold's that indicates
the dissimilarity of the two. ' It may be well for
readers of the following poem to dismiss from their
minds all recollection of the "Eddas," Ewald's
" Balder," Oehlenschlager's " Balder hiin Code," and
140
'BALDER THE BEAUTIFUL' 141
even Mr. Arnold's " Balder Dead." With the hero ;
of these familiar works my Balder has little in
common; he is neither the shadowy god of the
" Edda," nor the colossal hero of Ewald, nor the
good principle of Oehlenschlager, nor the Homeric i
demigod of Mr. Arnold. In the presentation of j
both the Father and Son, I have reverted to the
lines of the most primitive mythology ; discover- j
ing in the one the northern Messiah, as well as |
the northern Apollo, in the other (instead of the j
degraded Odin of later superstition) the Alfadur, |
or temporarily omnipotent godhead, who, despite
his darker features, has affinity with both the |
Zeus of the Eleusinian mysteries and the ;
Jehovah of the Bible.' ;
But as the poet adds, *it is unnecessary, how- ;
ever, further to explain the spirit of a poem which I
the competent reader will interpret in his own j
way, and which, if it fulfils its purpose at all, i
should have many meanings for many minds.' |
For those who count the later efforts of the
poet as the work of a writer daring in pur- j
pose and too reckless in method, who find in j
'The Wandering Jew,' 'The Devil's Case,' yes, i
even in 'The City of Dream,' the heresy of uncom- i
promising Eclecticism, a heresy which in their j
view destroys the value of these poems as works j
of art, ' Balder the Beautiful ' will probably stand
as the high-water mark of the poet's imagination j
and poetical genius. It can be regarded in the |
same category as ' The City of Dream ' in that its 1
success lies in the power of the poet to grasp and i
142 ROBERT BUCHANAN
portray with suggestive art the ever-changing
expression on the face of nature, and with that
insight which is the brightest star in the crown
of the poet, to weave a subtle meaning and to
suggest the soul's interpretation for the changing
floods that pass from the Eternal Spring, and
flow into the varied channels of nature.
Like most of the poet's work, it sounds the key-
note of despair in the face of misery and death, with
a belief in the ultimate triumph of the human soul,
echoed in the final dictum that * All that is beauti-
ful shall abide, all that is base shall die.'
A proem, 'A Song of a Dream,' serves as a
prelude,' of which these are three of the stanzas :
what is this cry in our burning- ears,
And what is this light on our eyes, dear love ?
The cry is the cry of the rolling years.
As they break on the sun-rock, far above ;
And the light is the light of that rock of gold
As it burneth bright in a starry sea ;
And the cry is clearer a hundredfold,
And the light more bright, when I gaze on thee.
My weak eyes dazzle beneath that gleam,
My sad ears deafen to hear that cry :
1 was born in a dream, and I dwell in a dream,
And I go in a dream to die !
O what are the voices around my way,
And what are these shadows that stir below ?
The voices of waifs in a world astray.
The shadows of souls that come and go.
And I hear and see, and I vponder more.
For their features are fair and strange as mine.
But most I wonder when most I pore
On the passionate peace of this face of thine.
We walk in silence by wood and stream.
Our gaze upturned to the same blue sky :
We move in a dream, and we love in a dream,
And we go in our dream to die !
' BALDER THE BEAUTIFUL' 143
O closer creep to this breast of mine ;
We rise, we mingle, we break, dear love !
A space on the crest of the wave we shine,
With light and music and mirth we move ;
Before and behind us (fear not, sweet !)
Blackens the trough of the surging sea —
A little moment our mouths may meet,
A httle moment I cling to thee ;
Onward the wonderful waters stream,
'Tis vain to struggle, 'tis vain to cry—
We wake in a dream, and we ache in a dream,
And we break in a dream, and die !
The Birth of Balder opens with the 'Song' in
the following metre :
There blent with his growing
The leaf and the flower,
The wind lightly blowing
Its balm from afar.
The smile of the sunshine,
The sob of the shower,
The beam of the moonshine.
The gleam of the star.
'Mid shining of faces
And waving of wings,
With gifts from all places
Came beautiful things ;
The blush from the blossom.
The bloom from the corn.
Blent into his bosom,
Ere Balder was born.
In the sedge of the river ',
The swan makes its nest ; ;
In the mere, with no quiver, I
Stands shadow'd the crane ; i
Earth happy and still is, I
Peace dwells in her breast, .
And the lips of her lilies |
Drink balm from the rain ; j
The lamb in the meadow '
Upsprings with no care, I
Deep in the wood's shadow j
Is born the young bear ; ,
The ash and the alder, i
The flowers and the corn, |
All waited for Balder, — ,'
And Balder is born ! i
144 ROBERT BUCHANAN
This song is embodied in fourteen stanzas, and
is a picture of the earth as it prepared itself for
the birth of the ' God.' We next view the birth,
growth, and attainment of Godhead of the young
spirit. 'Lovely as light and blossoms are, and
gentle as the dew, a white god stainless as a star
deep hidden' is Balder. Leaving him upon a
bank of flowers, ' Frea,' his mother, flies upward
to the heavens, and at the feet of the All-Father
announces that the young god is dead, at which
there is joy in heaven. Meanwhile Balder, down
in the forest, is growing into the splendour of his
manhood.
He drinks no nurture of the breast,
No mother's kiss he knows ;
Warm as a song-bird in its nest
He feels the light, and grows.
Around him flock all gentle things
Which range the forest free :
Each shape that blooms, each shape that sings,
Looks on him silently.
The light is melted on his lips
And on his eyes of blue.
And from the shining leaves he sips
The sweetness of the dew.
O look into his happy eyes,
As lustrous as the dew !
A light like running water lies
Within their depths of blue ;
And there the white cloud's shadow dim
Stirs, mirror'd soft and gray.
And far within the dream-dews swim
With melancholy ray.
'BALDER THE BEAUTIFUL' 145 j
His hair is like the midnight sun's, j
All g-olden-red and bright ; j
But radiance as of moonrise runs
Upon his limbs of white. i
Quietly as a moonbeam creeps
He moves from place to place ;
Soft steals the starlight, as he sleeps,
To breathe upon his face.
Now brightly gleams the soft green sod, j
The golden seeds are sown ;
O pale white lily of a god.
Thou standest now full blown ! j
The goddess Frea returns to earth to find I
Balder, and ' when the trumpet of day was blown
from the great golden gateways of the sun, and
when leaf by leaf the crimson rose o' the east |
open'd, and leaf by leaf illumed in turn, glittered \
the snowy lily of the north,' she meets her son, i
'bright, beautiful, and palpably divine.' In his \
eyes 'immortal innocence and mortal peace are |
bent to love and gentleness divine.' Under the j
ministration of the starlight and the moonlight, |
the dew and the flowers, he has grown into
beauty and strength : |
And from the crimson of divine deep dawns ]
And from the flush of setting suns, thy cheeks i
Have gather'd such a splendour as appals j
The vision, even mine. i
And ne'er was sound of falling summer showers
On boughs with lilac laden and with rose.
Or cuckoo-cries o'er emerald uplands heard,
Or musical murmurs of dark summer dawns,
More sweet than Balder's voice.
K
146 ROBERT BUCHANAN
Balder speaks to his mother of how the world
has kindled to him like an opening rose, and how
in the gladness of the world great joy had come
to him, and in the love of her celestial looks
he reads the answer to the mystery of his dim
earthly being. He has had dreams of other gods,
and in horror he reveals the truth that he has
seen his Father— the stern, cruel force that sweeps
with unsympathetic look over all things great and
small. The mystery of Death oppresses him — all
the earth has become darkened by the sight of the
death of one small bird. The mother tells Balder
that he must journey with her to that dim Land
which lies * ev'n as a cloud around the Father's
feet' — and they set forth. As they go they pass
by an ocean where the god views for the first time
the form of the human dead. His soul is much
disturbed, and to his questioning the answer
comes that man is to the gods *no more than
singing birds that soar a little flight and fall.'
On the Heavenward journey they come to
where the goddesses dwell— Rota, 'a tall shape
with mailed plates upon her breast, a skirt blood-
red, and in her hand a spear,' Gefion, Eir, Freya,
and others. 'These lilies fair, blown in the still
pools of Eternity,' are asked by Frea to give a
benediction to the young god. This is the picture
of Freya :
But as he gently came there interposed
A wonder of new brightness, — such a shape,
So perfect in divine white loveliness,
As never mortal yet beheld and lived.
'BALDER THE BEAUTIFUL' 147
And Balder trembled, and his bosom heaved
With an exceeding sweetness strang-e and new,
While close to his there came a shining face,
Still as a sunbeam, dimmer than a dream.
And Freya, for 'tis she whose touch is life
To happy lovers, and to loveless men
Is sickness and despair, said, breathing warm,
While on her alabaster arms love's light
Was flushing faint as through a rose's leaves,
' Let all my sisters greet thee as they will,
I love thee. Balder ! since of lovely things
Thou art the brightest and the loveliest ! '
And lo ! ere he was ware of her intent,
Unto his cheek she prest a warm red mouth
Kings of great empires would have swoon'd to touch,
And poet's heavenly-dower'd would have died
To dream of kissing. Then thro' Balder ran
A new miraculous rapture such as feels
The dark Earth when the scented Summer leaps
FuU-blossom'd as a bridegroom to her arms ;
Such as musk-roses know when blown apart
By sunbeams in mid-June ; and Balder's sense
Swoon'd, and he seem'd strewn o'er with fruit and flowers.
And on his lids were touches like warm rain.
And on his nostrils and his parted lips
Delicious balm aud spicy odours feU,
And all his soul was like a young maid's frame
Bathed in the warmth of love's first virgin dream.
And as for the young god :
Balder's loveliness in that bright place
Was as the soft sheen of the summer moon
Arising silvern in the cloudless west
Above the sunset seas of orange gold ;
And there was trouble in his human eyes
Most melancholy sweet, — trouble hke tears.
Of starlight, or the tremor of the dew.
We view the pale Ydun, 'with the pallor of wan
waters that wash for evermore the cold white
feet of spectral polar moons,' who gives to Balder
the mystical apples of the gods, which fill him
with a supreme and unfamiliar life. Leaving the
148 ROBERT BUCHANAN
grove of the goddesses, he wanders on with Frea
to the City of the Gods, far beyond the wastes
of the North to the region of the Polar Fires.
There, standing on the verge of a vast sea of ice,
they espy Asgard :
Asgard, the great City of the Gods,
For ever burnt to ashes night by night
And dawn by dawn for evermore renew'd.
And mortals when they see from out their caves
The City crumbling with a thousand fires
Cry, ' Lo, the Sunset ! '—and when evermore
They mark it springing up miraculous
From its own ashes strewn beside the sea,
Cry, ' Lo, the Sunrise ! ' There, within its walls
The great gods strive in thickening fumes of fight,
Gathering together bloody ghosts of men ;
And when the great towers tremble and the spires
Shoot earthward and the fiery ashes smoke.
The gods exult a little space, and wave
Their brands for all the vales of earth to see ;
But when the ashes blacken, and the moon
Shines on the City's embers, silently
They creep into their starry tents and sleep, —
Till like a rose unfolding leaf by leaf.
The immortal City rises !
Here Balder calls upon his Father, and from out
the darkness come thunders from heaven; and
following the murmur of the Father's voice, he
proceeds onward, Frea awaiting his return. He
comes again, spectral white, and in 'his eyes a
shadowy pain, still divine but sorrowful.' He has
been cast out by the Father and his brethren.
He found there 'no love but protestation absolute,'
and was driven forth, pursued by the lightning
darts of the All-Father.
Then Frea wail'd, ' 'Tis o'er ! my hope is o'er !
Thy Father loves thee not, but casts thee forth—
'BALDER THE BEAUTIFUL' 149
Where wilt thou find a place to rest thy feet ? '
But Balder answer'd, ' Where the cushat builds
Her nest amid green leaves, and where wild roses
Hang lamps to light the dewy feet of dawn,
And where the starlight and the moonlight slumber,
Ev'n there, upon the balmy lap of Earth,
Shall I not sleep again ? '
Balder returns to earth, while Frea goes to the
feet of the Father to plead for her son, and to
claim the godhead for him. While Balder
Walks on the mountains,
He treads on the snows ;
He loosens the fountains
And quickens the wells ;
He is filling the chalice
Of lily and rose.
He is down in the valleys
And deep in the dells,— I
He smiles, and buds spring to him, !
The bright and the dark ; ]
He speaks, and birds sing to him, '
The finch and the lark —
He is down by the river.
He is up by the mere, '
Woods gladden, leaves quiver, j
For Balder is here. j
There is some divine trouble '
On earth and in air —
Trees tremble, brooks bubble, i
Ants loosen the sod ; '.
Warm footfalls awaken |
Whatever is fair ;
Sweet rain-dews are shaken i
To quicken each clod. I
The wild rainbows o'er him
Are melted and fade.
The grass runs before him
Thro' meadow and glade ; j
Green branches close round him, i
The leaves whisper near — I
' He is ours— we have found him — ]
Bright Balder is here I '
150 ROBERT BUCHANAN
He is here, he is moving
On mountain and dale,
And all things grow loving,
And all things grow bright :
Buds bloom in the meadows,
Milk foams in the pail,
There is scent in the shadows.
And sound in the light :
O listen ! he passes
Thro' valleys of flowers.
With springing of grasses
And singing of showers.
Earth wakes — he has called her.
Whose voice she holds dear ;
She was waiting for Balder,
And Balder is here !
His love for the creatures of earth finds expres-
sion in the song of Balder's return; and as
he walks in the forests, with beast and bird
administering to him, and as he wanders midst
hamlets and huts, and amongst men and women,
he declares his allegiance to Earth.
All human eyes to him were sweet,
He loved the touch of hands,
He kissed the print of human feet
Upon the soft sea-sands.
He raised his eyes to those cold skies
Which he had left behind, —
And saw the banners of the gods
Blown back upon the wind.
He watch'd them as they came and fled,
Then his divine eyes fell.
* I love the green Earth best,' he said,
' And I on Earth will dweU ! '
He conquers and blesses all the things of earth,
and is full of the joy of living things, until upon
'BALDER THE BEAUTIFUL' 151
his ears falls the song whose tidings are that
* Death makes all things dark.'
' And blest are children, springing fair of face
Like gentle blossoms in the dwelling-place ;
We clasp them close, forgetting for a space
Death makes the world so dark.
' And yet though life is glad and love divine,
This Shape we fear is here i' the summer shine, —
He blights the fruit we pluck, the wreath we twine.
And soon he leaves us stark.
' He haunts us fleetly on the snowy steep,
He finds us as we sow and as we reap,
He creepeth in to slay us as we sleep, —
Ah ! Death makes all things dark ! '
Now all his peace was poisoned by this cry to the I
gods for pity, and by this black Shadow which
encumbered the earth. His heart grew heavy as
he saw how the cold hand sought out all, and
how none escaped. He cries to his Father and ]
to the gods to stay the slayer, that the world i
may rest in peace ; but the dark gods only smiled, ;
'with smiles like sullen lightning on the lips of !
tempest.' Balder cries, 'What is this thing, and j
who hath sent it ? ' ,
There came a murmur, ' None can answer thee, I
Save him thou foUowest with weary feet ! '
Wherefore he wander'd on, and still in vain '
Sought Death the slayer. Into burial-places, |
Heapen with stones and seal'd with slime of grass, '
He track'd him, found him sitting lonely there i
Like one that dreams, his dreadful pitiless eyes i
Fix'd on the sunset star. Or oftentimes '
Beheld him running swiftly like a wolf I
Who scents some stricken prey along the ground. \
Or saw him into empty huts crawl slow,
And while the man and woman toiled i' the field, I
Gaze down with stony orbs a little space I
152 ROBERT -BUCHANAN
Upon the sickly babe, which open'd eyes,
And laugh'd, and spread its little faded hands
In elfin play. Nay, oft in Balder's sight
The form seem'd gentle, and the fatal face
Grew beautiful and very strangely fair.
Yet evermore while his swift feet pursued,
Darkling it fled away, and evermore
Most pitiful rose cries of beasts and birds,
Most desolate rose moans of stricken men,
Till Balder wept for sorrow's sake, and cried,
' Help me, my Father ! '
As he wanders on, he meets many signs of the
destroyer, and, overcome by the misery of the
terrible scourge, he vows that he will not pause
nor sleep till he has held Death by the hand, and
gazed into his eyes.
Here follows Balder's quest for Death, beginning:
He sought him on the mountains bleak and bare
And on the windy moors ;
He found his secret footprints everywhere,
Yea, ev'n by human doors.
All round the deerfold on the shrouded height
The starlight glimmer'd clear ;
Therein sat Death, wrapt round with vapours white
Touching the dove-eyed deer.
He wanders through the world, up to the region
of the snows and south into tropic lands. The
Shadow passes him at times, but without his
being able to hold it. He sees a bloody fight of
ships, and more signs of the destroyer's hands.
He meets Ydun, who offers him again the fruits of
Immortality, telling Balder that even Death
himself
Hath fed from out my hand and from my fruits
Drank immortality ; and lo, he walks
Immortal among mortals, on Earth's ways
Shedding the sad leaves of humanity.
'BALDER THE BEAUTIFUL* 153
Balder promises to eat the fruit if Ydun will lead
him to Death, a promise which is readily given.
* By the gods of Asgard I swear to lead thee to
him, and to read a rime which, whispered in his
ear, shall make him meek and weak as any lamb
to do thy will.' Balder eats the fruit, and they
come to the Altar of Sacrifice, where Death broods
over his dead. Balder speaks to Death and asks
him why he slays, and who sent him to kill ? — to
which Death replies :
* I know not whence my feet have come,
Nor whither they must go —
Lonely I wander, dark and dumb,
In summer and in snow.
' And ever, ever as I pace
Along- my lonely track.
The light retires before my face,
Advancing at my back !
' But ever, ever if I turn
And would my steps retrace,
Close to my back that light doth bum.
But flies before my face
' I set faint gleams around their lips,
I smooth their brows and hair,
I place within their clay-cold grips
The lilies of despair.
* O think of this and blame not me,
Thou with the eyes divine—
A Shadow creeps from sea to sea.
Stranger than thine or mine.
' Who made the white bear and the seal ?
The eagle and the Lamb ?
As these am I— I live and feel
ONE made me, and I am.'
Balder absolves him, and tells how good he
has found the Earth, and that only one thing is
154 ROBERT BUCHANAN
bitter— that 'Eternal Death, which sits by his
sad and silent sea of graves, singing a song that
slays the hopes of men.' He prays to God for
death, so that his sacrifice may save others ; and
then, as the gods send their snow to cover him in
his sleep, 'the other,' who laid down his life for
mankind, approaches, and as Balder lies there in
his sleep of death, cries to him to awake :
' I am thine elder Brother
Come from beyond the sea,
For many a weary night and day
I have been seeking thee ! '
The Christ tells of his own land and his own death,
and of the other gentle gods whom he had visited,
all of whom had died for men. Amongst these is
Prometheus.
' I wander'd west where eagles soar
Far o'er the realms of rains,
And there, among pale mountain peaks,
One hung in iron chains.
' His head was hoary as the snow
Of that serene cold clime,
Yet like a child he smiled, and sang
The cradle-song of Time.
' And as he sang upon his cross,
And in no human tones,
The cruel gods who placed him there
Were shaken on their thrones.
' I kiss'd him softly on the lips.
And sighing set him free-
He wanders now in the green world,
Divine, like thee and me. . . .
Why, asks Balder, should I rise ?—
' O wherefore should I rise at all
Since all is black above.
And trampled 'neath the feet of gods
Lie all the shapes I love ?
' BALDER THE BEAUTIFUL ' 155
And Christ cried, gazing down on Death, i
Making a mystic sign, |
' Now blessings on my servant Death, j
For he too is divine. '
!i
' O Balder, he who fashion'd us, I
And bade us live and move, 1
Shall weave for Death's sad heavenly hair I
Immortal flowers of love. i
' Ah ! never fail'd my servant Death, ,
Whene'er I named his name, —
But at my bidding he hath flown
As swift as frost or flame. j
i
' Yea, as a sleuth-hound tracks a man.
And finds his form, and springs, !
So hath he hunted down the gods i
As well as human things !
' Yet only thro' the strength of Death
A god shall fall or rise— '
A thousand lie on the cold snows, '
Stone still, with marble eyes.
' But whosoe'er shall conquer Death, |
Tho' mortal man he be, j
Shall in his season rise again.
And live, with thee, and me ! i
' And whosoe'er loves mortals most
Shall conquer Death the best, '
Yea, whosoe'er grows beautiful
Shall grow divinely blest.' I
The white Christ raised his shining face
To that still bright'ning sky. j
' Only the beautiful shall abide.
Only the base shall die ! ' i
Led by Balder, Christ goes to the City of the
Gods, passing up the Bridge of Ghosts.
' O brother, place thy hand in mine,'
The gentle Balder said ; i
The rayless waters roar'd beneath, i
The Bridge flash'd overhead. !
156 ROBERT BUCHANAN
Then hand in hand against the wind
They faltered upward slow,
On stairs of crimson and of gold
Climbing the wondrous Bow.
Like a great rainbow of the earth
It rose with faint hues seven,
And thro' the purple of the arch
GHmmer'd the lights of heaven.
When they had reach'd the midmost height.
In air they stood so high.
To one beneath they would have seem'd
As stars upon the sky.
Coming to the footstool of the throne, Balder
announces his resurrection :
The rune is woven, the spell is spoken,
And lo ! the dream of the gods is broken,
And each pale throne is shaken.
They rise, they tremble against the sky.
They shriek an answer to Balder's cry.
And white as death they waken !
Gods they glimmer in frozen mail.
Their faces are flashing marble pale.
They rise erect, and they wave their hands,
They scatter the shifting snows as sands.
And gaze in the face of the Father ! . . .
. , . Blacker, blacker, the night is growing,
Faster, faster, the snow is snowing—
Silently looking thro' the storm,
Towers the one gigantic Form,
And all around with a trumpet sound
The wintry winds are blowing.
The light of doom is in his eyes, his arms spread wide for
slaughter.
He sits 'mid gleams of burning skies, and wails of vdnd-
blown water,
Behind the outline of his cheeks the pale aurora flashes.
He broods 'mid moveless mountain peaks and looks thro'
fiery lashes :
On heaven and earth that round him float in whirls of snowy
wonder.
He looks, and from his awful throat there comes the cry of
thunder !
' BALDER ! BALDER ! '
'BALDER THE BEAUTIFUL' 157
He learns the hatred of the Gods, their hatred for
his summer face, his soft footfall, his earthly love,
his heavenly dower, and the rime that was written
and read. They had cursed him before, but they
curse their deepest now when they read that rime
by the light of his love for men. After long
pleading between the Father and the two sons,
Balder calls upon Death, who has followed them
to the City of the Gods, to conquer the Father and
take the Throne, all the other gods'^having flown at
the coming of the Christ. Death obeys, and then :
And the hair of Death is golden, the face of Death is glowing,
While softly around his form he folds his mighty wings,
And vast as the vast blue heavens the fair faint form is growing,
But the face that all men fear is bright with beautiful things.
Ev'n so the Brethren wait where the darkest snows are drifted.
Small as two doves that light in a wilderness alone,
While bright on the blood-red skies, with luminous head uplifted,
In a dream divine upgazing. Death sitteth upon his throne.
And the ' Song ' ends with the canto ' From Death
to Life.'
' O Balder, Balder, wherefore hide
Thy face from the blue sky ! '
The voice was music, but it cried
Like any human cry.
*0 Balder, Balder,' the white Christ said,
' Look up and answer me,'
Bright Balder raised his golden head,
Like sunrise on the sea.
' O Brother, I was weeping then
For those whom Death o'erthrew.
Shall I, whose eyes have mourn'd for men,
Not mourn my brethren too ? '
The white Christ answered back, and cried.
Shining under the sky,
' All that is beautiful shall abide,
All that is base shall die.
158 ROBERT BUCHANAN
' And if among- thy sleeping kin
One soul divine there be,
That soul shall walk the world and win
New life, with thee and me.
' Death shall not harm one holy hair,
Nor blind one face full sweet ;
Death shall not mar what Love made fair ;
Nay, Death shall kiss their feet ! '
In Balder's hand Christ placed his own,
And it was g^olden weather,
And on that berg as on a throne
The Brethren stood together !
And countless voices far and wide
Sang sweet beneath the sky —
' All that is beautiful shall abide.
All that is base shall die ! '
In 1885 appeared the first volume of 'The
Earthquake,* or ' Six Days and a Sabbath ' — this
volume dealing with the first three days. The
main idea of the poem is a kind of New Republic,
in which men and women of divers tempera-
ments and views of life are made to express in
verse various aspects of their intellectual, moral,
and religious points of view. An earthquake is
supposed to have taken place in London, and
Lady Barbara of Kensington, Flower of Mid-
lothian, the Agnostic queen, full of culture to the
finger-tips, and married to a Midas, flies north to
her estate on Tweedside, taking with her her
Court — the last great traveller, the newest painter
and musician, the poet latest found and most
divine, scientists, professors of all -ologies and
-isms, the favourites of Fashion and the Muse —
every male or female wanderer : —
'THE EARTHQUAKE' 159
Out of the beaten highway of the creeds
Was gathered into Barbara's peaceful fold :
The castaway who had in soul's despair,
His cassock lost, his prayer-book left i' the hold,
Plunged overboard from that old ship the Church,
Now tossing water-logg'd amidst the storm.
We are told that
When the murmur of the Earthquake came.
The teacup trembled in the scoffer's hand.
The wise looked foolish, and the lions ran i
Lowing together like affrighted stirks. 1
In that dread moment he who faced the Sphynx '
And read annihilation in its eyes, I
Who, from the cynosure of mastery, |
Survey'd the conflict and the wreck of worlds, |
Saw suns grow dark like torches suddenly
Plunged hissing into water, and foretold, |
With scientific equanimity, j
The sure extinction of the human race, I
Became as terrorstricken as a bairn j
Who, waking suddenly at dead of night j
To find the night-light out, begins to wail. j
Then many named God's Judgment with a sigh
Who thitherto had named it with a smile ! i
I
For the reception of the mediaeval court of Love
and Learning our Lady Barbara makes elaborate i
arrangement, 'and since the Priory could not ;
lodge them all, the inns and cottages around about
were full of spectacled and bearded men, whose i
strange ways made the country-people gape in
wonder and in awe.' It is summer-time, and '
Nature is pluming herself in all her splendour.
On the first afternoon everybody is seated out of
doors, and Lady Barbara is speaking : I
The canker-worm of Ennui gnaws the heart
Of Pleasure's full-blown rose ! Come, who '11 devise
Some sport to fleet away the golden time ?
Who '11 lead our drowsy-headed idleness \
In flowery fetters of some pleasant toil ? ;
I
i6o ROBERT BUCHANAN
Despite the sneers of the comic vivisectionist,
Douglas Sutherland, young cynic of the * Cynical
Review,' Mr. Spinoza Smith, the plump pantheist,
with luminous eye and hanging underlip, loose
and lax logic, says :
' Better to rave like the old oracle
Than, quivering- like a restless tadpole, haunt
The muddy shallows of perpetual doubt ! '
Turning to Barbara, ' Since we moderns seek
A summer pastime like those Florentines,
Why let not that same Problem be our theme,
And let each man and woman tell in turn
Some chronicle of those who, quick or dead.
Have wander'd problem-haunted through the world ?
This is agreed upon, and Barbara is crowned
Queen of the Court of which the poet is appointed
laureate, while the cynic is called upon to assume
the hood and baldrick of the fool. A tryst is
made to meet on the morrow, and the poet
wanders off, pondering the green world's problem
with a poet's heart.
Soft as a leaf
The gloaming fell, and flutter'd like a veil
Over the half-closed eyelids of the world.
Stars glimmer'd faintly, opening one by one
And blossoming above me, while I stole
Through warmly scented shadows till I gained
Dark fern-clad slopes that ran to hills of heather.
And looking heavenward saw a painter's vision.
There like a naked maiden stood the Moon,
Wading in saffron shallows of the west :
Timidly, with a tender backward glance,
She reach'd a faltering foot to feel the way,
Then, brightly smiling as the lucent waves
Wash'd, tipt with splendour, round her swan-white throat,
Bent forward, cleft the dusk with ivory hands,
And swam in splendour thro' the seas of night.
The first day opens with a discussion on monks.
'THE EARTHQUAKE' i6i
in the midst of which Miranda tells the remark-
able and weird legend of Julia Cytherea— the most
strikingly original of the poet's efforts in this
work. It is a tale of a musing monk who, weed-
ing his garden outside Rome, is aroused by the
news that Venus herself has been disentombed in
Rome ' By some dark chemic trick of fingers old,
embalm'd within that ivory coffin cold, a thousand
years in the tomb ; her cheek hath kept its bloom,
her eyes their glory, and her hair its gold.' He
creeps down to Rome, and there discovers that
all Rome is agape at the discovery of the
embalmed body of Julia, the child of Claudius.
When thus she turn'd with soft last breath
Into the chilly arras of Death,
She might have seen the happy light
Some sixteen years, — but form so bright
Ne'er trembled between childish glee
And tremulous virginity.
Only a child ; yet far too fair
For any child of mortal air,
Since Passion's fiery flame, it seem'd,
Still play'd about her locks, and stream'd
From 'neath her eyelids ; and her limbs
Were amber with such light as swims
Round Love's own altar ; and her lips,
Untouch'd by darkness or eclipse,
Were wonderful and poppy-red
With kisses of a time long dead, —
When Love indeed in naked guise
Still walk'd the world with awful eyes
And flaming hair. So fair she lay.
Burning like amber in the ray.
As burns a lamp with sweet oils fed
Within some shrine no foot may tread,
No hand of any mortal man ;
And as men gaze on some new star,
Men marvell'd while they gazed on her.
She is laid in the Capitol, and the world flocks to
L
i62 ROBERT BUCHANAN
gaze upon her beauty; Marcus among the rest,
who, watching the crystal mirror of her sleep, and
gazing on her divine beauty, is fascinated. He
hides, and in the dead of night interviews the
body alone. He soliloquises the sleeping figure,
and calls upon her to awake and save the world
for Beauty's sake, instead of Christ's. We are told
of her beauteous awakening, and of how the two
walked in the green land of light and love ; the
poet picturing for us again the golden days of
Paganism. In the midst of their joy the Madonna
appears, and calls on the Maiden to follow her to
her grave, there to wait with darkened eyes in
peace, until the Son shall rise. Marcus tries to
save her, but the Madonna, touching her on the
forehead, turns her to a corpse of marble ; then
clasping the marble form with piteous cries,
Marcus kisses her on the mouth and eyes, crying,
* Awake, awake ! ' ' till his heart broke for sorrow's
sake, and heavy as a stone he falls,' and
At dawn (as old traditions tell),
When the pale priests and soldiers came
To see once more that shining- frame
Within her marble tomb, behold !
Still beautiful, with locks of gold,
Unfaded to the finger-tips,
With faint pink cheeks and rose-red lips.
Her they found softly sleeping on ;
And by her, turn'd to senseless stone.
Watching her face with eyes of lead,
Knelt the monk Marcus, cold and dead.
Of other poems that are sung or recited in this
court of love, ' Pan at Hampton Court ' views in a
poetic form contemporary life in the light of Pagan
'THE EARTHQUAKE' 163
characterisation. A striking piece of imagery is
worthy of note here :
Slowly, softly, westward flew
Day on wings of gold and blue ;
As she faded out of sight
Dark and balmy fell the night.
Silent 'neath the azure cope,
Earth, a naked Ethiope,
Reach'd black arms up through the air,
Dragging down the branches bright
Of the flowering heavens, where
Starry fruitage glimmer'd white !
As he drew them gently near,
Dewdrops dim and crystal clear
Rain'd upon his face and eyes !
Listening, watching, we could hear
His deep breathing 'neath the skies ;
Suddenly, far down the glade.
Startled from some place of shade.
Like an antelope the dim
Moon upsprang, and looked at him !
Panting, trembling, in the dark.
Paused to listen and to mark,
Then with shimmer dimly fair
On from shade to shade did spring,
Gain'd the fields of heaven, and there
Wander'd, calmly pasturing !
Of a different nature is the story of * Serapion ' put
into the mouth of a Bishop, the story of a monk
who was infinitely happy in the belief of the
existence of a personal God, and who was rendered
miserable by wise men arguing him out of his
faith. To this category also belongs 'Ramon
Monat,' whilst we have a foreshadowing of 'The
Wandering Jew' in the song 'Storm in the Night.'
'The Voyage of Magellan' is a characteristic
piece of Buchananese, and is a spirited and stir-
ring ballad.
1
i64 ROBERT BUCHANAN
O Magellan ! lord and leader !— only He whose fing-ers frame
Twisted thews of pard or panther, knot them round their hearts of
flame,
Light the emeralds burning brightly in their eyeballs as they roll,
Could have made that mightier marvel, thine inexorable soul !
O Magellan ! mighty Eagle, circhng sunward lost in light.
Wafting wings of power and striking meaner things that cross thv
flight,
God to such as thee gives never lambkin's love or dove's desire-
Nay, but eyes that scatter terror from a ruthless heart of fire !
And the volume closes with the song * O Mariners.'
O MARINERS.
O Mariners, out of the sunlight, and on through the infinite Main,
We have sailed, departing at morning ;— and now it is morning
again.
Dimly, darkly, and blindly, our life and our journey begun.
Blind and deaf was our sense with the fiery sands of the sun.
Then slowly, grown stronger and stronger, feeling from zone on to
zone.
We passed the islands of darkness, and reached the sad Ocean,
alone.
But now we pause for a moment, searching the east and the west.
Above and beneath us the waters that mirror our eyes in their
breast !
Behind, the dav/n and the darkness, - new dawn around and
before, —
Ah me, we are weary, and hunger to rest, and to wonder no more.
Yet never, O Mariners, never were we so stately and fair—
The forms of the flood obey us, we are lords of the birds of the air.
And yet as we sail we are weeping, and crying, ' Although we have
ranged
So far over infinite waters, transformed out of darkness and
changed,
'THE EARTHQUAKE' 165
We know that the Deep beneath us must drink us and wash us
away ' —
Nay, courage — sail on for a season— on, on to the gateways of Day.
Our voyage is only beginning— its dreariest dangers are done.
We now have a compass to guide us, the Soul, and it points to
the Sun !
The stars in their places obey us, the winds are as slaves to our
sail —
Be sure that we never had journey'd so far but to perish and fail !
Out of the wonderful sunlight, and on through the infinite Main,
We have sail'd, departing at morning— and now it is morning
again !
CHAPTER VII
BALLADS
There are few royal roads in Literature, but there
is one door to the public heart which can be opened
neither by epic nor ode, but by the simple mediums
of song and ballad. Amongst those who use verse,
as their soul's interpreter, the writer of a good song
is surest of his immortality, and it may be on this
account that lyrical poets are, after all, in closest
touch with the human heart; and it is possible
that when we are only conserving an academic
interest in our Spenser, Wordsworth, Milton,
Goethe, and Dante, people will still be singing
the songs of Burns, Heine, and Beranger; and
perhaps when the ' Idylls of the King ' is but a
volume in a consulting library, 'Break, Break,
Break,' will still be a living national possession.
The fate of a great ballad seems none the less
sure, and in two hundred years from now Brown-
ing may be known only as the writer of 'The
Pied Piper of Hamelin,' Coleridge (fortunate
very) as the author of 'The Ancient Mariner,'
and Longfellow may be a name associated with
the * Wreck of the Hesperus.' Even to-day that
166
BALLADS 167
figment, as Mr. Birrell calls him, the Man in the
Street, regards Mr. Browning only as a writer of
one or two stirring ballads, Thomas Campbell as
the author of * Lord Ullin's Daughter,' and Tenny-
son as the writer of 'The Charge of the Light
Brigade.' Immortality in literature is a vague
term embodying a vaguer period of time, but
taking the word, even to limit its meaning to a
century or two, we may apply it with more ease
of conscience to a song or a ballad than we dare
to other efforts in poetical construction.
A music sense, and dramatic action, the essen-
tials of the song and ballad respectively, are capable
of rapid appreciation when expressed through
these two mediums, the just valuation of the more
elaborated qualities of other forms of poetical
expression necessitating a training which is not
to be found in the greater world. For songs and
ballads come not to the people by searching, but
are, in a sense, unconsciously absorbed into the
current of common thought and feeling.
To many Mr. Robert Buchanan is known in
a poetical sense as the author of 'Phil Blood's
Leap ' and * Fra Giacomo,' and there are thou-
sands who have never even heard of * The City of
Dream' who know by heart 'The Ballad of Judas
Iscariot.* A man with the insight and dramatic
feeling of Mr. Buchanan could not have avoided
becoming a writer of ballads ; and more than any
other contemporary poet, excepting perhaps Mr.
Kipling, he has made the ballad an ever-recur-
ring method of dramatic and poetical expression,
i68 ROBERT BUCHANAN
and wherever the language is spoken, *The
Wedding of Shon Maclean' and 'The Wake of
Tim O'Hara' are admired and loved for their
broad humanity and their humour akin to tears.
Before the publication, in 1864, of the poet's first
volume, there had already appeared one of his
more famous ballads, that of 'Fra Giacomo,'
which, from a purely dramatic point of view, must
be considered, unless we are much mistaken, the
most perfect of the poet's efforts in this sphere of
art. To this period also belongs 'A Curl,' one
of the lesser known of the poet's ballads, but none
the less striking in the intensity of its passion and
the dignity of its theme.
From the miscellaneous poems published from
1866-70 we extract from that fine piece of vigorous
English, 'The Death of Roland ' :
Dead was Gerard the fair, the girl-mouth'd, the gay,
Who jested with the foe he slung his sword to slay ;
Dead was the giant Guy, big-hearted, small of brain ;
Dead was the hunchback Sanche, his red hunch slit in twain ;
Dead was the old hawk Luz, and sleeping by his side
His twin-sons, Charles the fleet, and Pierre the serpent-eyed ;
Dead was Antoine, the same who swore to speak no word
Till fivescore heathen heads fell by his single sword ;
Dead was the wise Gerin, who gript both spear and pen ;
Sansun was dead, Gereir was dead !— dead were the mighty
men !
Then Turpin dropt the torch, that flamed upon the ground,
But drinking blood and dew, died out with drizzhe sound ;
He groped for Roland's heart, and felt it faintly beat,
And, feeling on the earth, he found the wine-flask sweet,
And, fainting with the toil, slaked not his own great drouth.
But, shivering, held the flask to Roland's gentle mouth :
E'en then, his Soul shot up, and in its shirt of steel
The Corse sank back, with crash like ice that cracks beneath the
heel !
BALLADS 169
' Now, dead and cold, alas ! lieth the noblest wight
For preaching sermons sweet and wielding sword in fight ;
His voice was as a trump that on a mountain blows.
He scatter'd oils of grace and wasted heathen-foes, —
White Mary take his soul, to join our comrades dear,
And let him wear his Bishop's crown in heaven above, as here ! '
In 'North Coast, and other Poems' {1867-68),
there are many stirring poems in a ballad metre,
of which the most ambitious effort is *Meg Blane,'
but the most successful is * The Battle of Drumlie-
moor,' a ballad of the Covenant Period. If, instead
of writing a ballad which conveyed the feeling of
that stirring period in Scottish history, the poet
had essayed a ballad dealing with an actual
historical incident, the success of it would have
been assured, if we consider how evidently
true to the spirit of the time is the feeling and
action of *The Battle of Drumliemoor.' As it is,
one feels that if there never was a battle at
Drumliemoor, at least there ought to have been.
Of Scottish Ballads, Professor Blackie placed
this battle-piece of the poet's very high in the
literature of the subject. No extract can convey
the unflagging swing of the ballad, the breathless,
fiery, fanatical spirit of ecclesiastical soldiery.
Bar the door ! put out the light, for it gleams across the night,
And guides the bloody motion of their feet ;
Hush the bairn upon thy breast, lest it guide them in their quest,
And with water quench the blazing of the peat.
Now, Wife, sit still and hark !— hold my hand amid the dark ;
O Jeanie, we are scattered— e'en as sleet !
It was down on Drumliemoor, where it slopes upon the shore,
And looks upon the breaking of the bay.
In the kirkyard of the dead, where the heather is thrice red
With the blood of those asleep beneath the clay ;
And the Howiesons were there, and the people of Glen Ayr,
And we gathered in the gloom o' night— to pray.
170 ROBERT BUCHANAN
How ! Sit at home in fear, when God's Voice was in mine ear,
When the priests of Baal were slaughtering; His sheep ?
Nay ! there I took my stand, with my reap-hook in my hand.
For bloody was the sheaf that I might reap ;
And the Lord was in His skies, with a thousand dreadful eyes.
And His breathing made a trouble on the Deep.
Each mortal of the band brought his weapon in his hand,
Though the chopper or the spit was all he bare ;
And not a man but knew the work he had to do,
If the Fiend should fall upon us unaware.
And our looks were ghastly white, but it was not affright,—
The Lord our God was present to our prayer.
Oh, solemn, sad, and slow rose the stern voice of Monroe,
And he curst the curse of Babylon the Whore ;
We could not see his face, but a gleam was in its place.
Like the phosphor of the foam upon the shore ;
And the eyes of all were dim, as they fixed themselves on him,
And the Sea filled up the pauses with its roar.
But it is in the volume of ' Miscellaneous Poems
and Ballads ' which grew up between 1878-83, that
we find the best-known of the poet's efforts in this
direction. Here are 'The Strange Country,' 'The
Ballad of Judas Iscariot,' 'The Lights of Leith,'
' The Wedding of Shon Maclean,' ' Phil Blood's
Leap,' 'O'Connor's Wake,' 'James Avery,' and
other ballads, which have served the purpose of
many a reciter, professional and amateur. 'The
Lights of Leith ' and ' Phil Blood's Leap ' possess
in themselves no special characteristic of the
poet's modes of expression, and despite their
popularity, need not concern us here. Of the
* Ballad of Judas Iscariot ' we can only say that it
stands in relation to Mr. Buchanan's name, in
the eye of public estimation and in the public
memory, in much the same way as ' The Ancient
BALLADS 171
Mariner' stands to Coleridge, and is in many
ways constructed on homologous lines. In
association with the Vision of the Man Accurst
in *The Book of Orm,' it embodies the essence of
the ultimate optimism of the poet's philosophy,
' God shall cast away no man.' It is the poem
that, probably, has attracted a greater number of
readers to Mr. Buchanan's more ambitious work
than any other of his efforts in verse or prose. Its
simplicity, its inevitableness, if the word is allow-
able in this case, command the attention at once,
and the sense of mysticism and solemnity draws
us with no uncertain hand from the vulgarity
of common experiences. The ballad consists of
forty-nine stanzas, of which we give twenty.
'Twas the body of Judas Iscariot
Lay in the field of Blood ;
'Twas the soul of Judas Iscariot
Beside the body stood.
Black was the earth by night,
And black was the sky ;
Black, black were the broken clouds,
Tho' the red Moon went by.
'Twas the soul of Judas Iscariot,
So grim, and gaunt, and gray,
Raised the body of Judas Iscariot,
And carried it away.
And as he bare it from the field
Its touch was cold as ice.
And the ivory teeth within the jaw
Rattled aloud, like dice.
As the soul of Judas Iscariot
Carried its load with pain.
The Eye of Heaven, like a lanthom's eye,
Open'd and shut again.
172 ROBERT BUCHANAN
Half he walk'd, and half he seemed
Lifted on the cold wind ;
He did not turn, for chilly hands
Were pushing from behind.
For days and nights he wandered on
Upon an open plain,
And the days went by like blinding mist,
And the nights like rushing rain.
For days and nights he wandered on.
All thro' the Wood of Woe ;
And the nights went by like moaning wind.
And the days like drifting snow.
'Twas the soul of Judas Iscariot
Came with a weary face —
Alone, alone, and all alone,
Alone in a lonely place !
He wandered east, he wandered west,
And heard no human sound ;
For months and years, in grief and tears,
He wandered round and round.
And the wold was white with snow.
And his foot-marks black and damp,
And the ghost of the silvern Moon arose.
Holding her yellow lamp.
And the icicles were on the eaves.
And the walls were deep with white,
And the shadows of the guests within
Pass'd on the window light.
* • • • •
The body of Judas Iscariot
Lay stretched along the snow ;
'Twas the soul of Judas Iscariot
Ran swiftly to and fro.
To and fro, and up and down,
He ran so swiftly there.
As round and round the frozen Pole
Glideth the lean white bear.
BALLADS 173
The Bridegroom stood in the open door,
And he waved hands still and slow,
And the third time that he waved his hands
The air was thick with snow.
And of every flake of falling snow,
Before it touched the ground, |
There came a dove, and a thousand doves 1
Made sweet sound.
'Twas the body of Judas Iscariot
Floated away full fleet, \
And the wings of the dove that bare it off,
Were like its winding-sheet. ;
]
'Twas the Bridegroom stood at the open door,
And beckon'd, smiling sweet ;
'Twas the soul of Judas Iscariot
Stole in, and fell at his feet.
1
' The Holy Supper is spread within, j
And the many candles shine,
And I have waited long for thee, j
Before I poured the wine ! '
I
The supper wine is poured at last, l
The lights burn bright and fair, I
Iscariot washes the Bridegroom's feet, j
And dries them with his hair. |
' The Strange Country ' is another of Mr. j
Buchanan's better-known poems, with the often-
quoted opening lines : *
I have come from a mystical Land of Light '
To a Strange Country ;
The Land I have left is forgotten quite 1
In the Land I see.
'Tis life, all life, be it pleasure or pain,
In the Field and the Flood,
In the beating Heart, in the burning Brain,
In the Flesh and the Blood.
174 ROBERT BUCHANAN
Like waves in the cold Moon's silvern breath
They gather and roll,
Each crest of white is a birth or a death,
Each sound is a Soul.
Oh, whose is the Eye that gleams so bright
O'er this Strange Country ?
It draws us along with a chain of light.
As the Moon the Sea !
To quite a different tune is the 'Wedding of
Shon Maclean.' Here we have the poet in his
wildest Celtic mood. Here he throws his glamour
not on to weary souls and aspiring dreamers,
but on to that robust Paganism which finds its
truest expression in the unadulterated Celt. It
is unnecessary for us to tell the tale again, but
the following excerpts will recall the story and
the method :
To the wedding of Shon Maclean,
Twenty Pipers together
Came in the wind and the rain
Plajring across the heather ;
Backward their ribbons flew.
Blast upon blast they blew.
Each clad in tartan new.
Bonnet, and blackcock feather :
And every Piper was fou,
Twenty Pipers together !
Like the whistling of birds, like the humming of bees,
Like the sough of the south-wind in the trees.
Like the singing of angels, the playing of shawms,
Like Ocean itself with its storms and its calms.
Were the strains of Shon, when with cheeks aflame
He blew a blast thro' the pipes of fame.
Then out he slipt, and each man sprang
To his feet, and with ' hooch ' the chamber rang !
BALLADS 175
' Clear the tables ! ' shriek'd out one—
A leap, a scramble,— and it was done !
And then the Pipers all in a row
Tuned their pipes and began to blow.
While all to dance stood fain :
Sandy of Isla and Earach More,
Dougal Dhu from Kinflannan shore.
Played up the company on the floor
At the wedding of Shon Maclean.
But like an earthquake was the din j
When Shon himself led the Duchess in !
And she took her place before him there.
Like a white mouse dancing with a bear !
So trim and tiny, so slim and sweet,
Her blue eyes watching Shon's great feet,
With a smile that could not be resisted.
She jigged, and jumped, and twirl'd, and twisted !
Sandy of Isla led off the reel,
The Duke began it with toe and heel,
Then all join'd in amain ;
Twenty Pipers ranged in a row,
From squinting Shamus to lame Kilcroe,
Their cheeks like crimson, began to blow,
At the wedding of Shon Maclean.
Till the first faint music began to rise.
Like a thousand laverocks singing in tune,
Like countless corn-craiks under the moon.
Like the smack of kisses, like sweet bells ringing,
Like a mermaid's harp, or a kelpie singing,
Blew the pipes of Shon ; and the witching strain
Was the gathering song of the Clan Maclean !
Then (no man knows how the thing befell,
For none was sober enough to tell)
These heavenly Pipers fronv twenty places
Began disputing with crimson faces ;
Each asserting, like one demented,
The claims of the Clan he represented.
In vain grey Sandy of Isla strove
To soothe their struggle with words of love,
Asserting there, like a gentleman.
The superior claims of his own great Clan ;
176 ROBERT BUCHANAN
Then, finding to reason is despair,
He seizes his pipes and he plays an air—
The gathering tune of his Clan— and tries
To drown in music the shrieks and cries !
Heavens ! Every Piper, grown mad with ire,
Seizes his pipes with a fierce desire.
And blowing madly, with skirl and squeak,
Begins his particular tune to shriek !
Up and down the gamut they go.
Twenty Pipers, all in a row, ./ji
Each with a different strain ! : jj
Each tries hard to drown the first.
Each blows louder till Uke to burst.
Thus were the tunes of the Clans rehearst
At the wedding of Shon Maclean !
The small stars twinkled over the heather.
As the pipers wandered away together,
But one by one on the journey dropt,
Clutching his pipes, and there he stopt !
One by one on the dark hillside
Each faint blast of the bagpipes died,
Amid the wind and the rain !
And the twenty Pipers at break of day
In twenty different bogholes lay,
Serenely sleeping upon their way
From the wedding of Shon Maclean !
Should any man happen to be in doubt as to his
being wholly or partly Celtic, let him read the
above ballad, and if his heart does not leave the
normal in its general conduct, and if he does not
itch to be stepping it on the floor, he may write
himself down, once and for all, as a Sassenach.
1
CHAPTER VIII
'THE CITY OF DREAM'
The publication in 1888 of 'The City of Dream,'
an epic poem, with a dedication 'to the sainted
spirit of John Bunyan,' marks a distinctive place in
the poetical history of Mr. Buchanan. Here for
the first time, in a manner which has the appear-
ance of a system, he views man and his pilg-rim-
age through the intellectual and moral mazes
of the world, in the search for truth. * I have
called "The City of Dream,'" he says, *an epic
poem, using the term in a new and somewhat
unfamiliar sense, and believing it applicable to
any poetical work which embodies, in a series
of grandiose pictures, the intellectual spirit of
the age in which it was written. The "Iliad"
and the "Odyssey" are the epic, or epoch, poems
of the heroic or pagan period ; the " De Rerum
Natura" is the epic of Roman scepticism and
decadence; the "Divine Comedy" is the epic
of Roman Catholicism ; the " Paradise Lost,"
that of the epoch known as Protestant ; Bunyan's
" Pilgrim's Progress" (as surely a poem, although
written in prose, as any of those others) is the
M
178 ROBERT BUCHANAN
epic of English Dissent ; while to compare small
things with great, "The City of Dream" is an
epic of modern Revolt and Reconciliation.'
Even on a superficial study of the poem, it is
quite evident that years of thought and speculation
must have been spent in its conception and pre-
paration. * How much has been attempted may be
seen in such a section as that of "The Amphi-
theatre," where an effort is made to adumbrate
the entire spirit of Greek poetry and theology.'
It is certainly the most ambitious of all the poet's
works, and perhaps the most successful as a
complete work of art. 'The Drama of Kings'
was a notable effort of ambition, but it is neither
so complete a study, nor, if the conventional
term may be used, is it as true to history. With
perhaps a single exception, the record of the
heartburnings, doubts, and experiences of the
Pilgrim as painted in 'The City of Dream' is
drawn on lines which are absolutely faithful to
nature and to the various economies and phases
which they represent. With the single exception
mentioned, there is no attempt at useless over-
drawing and exaggeration. Naturally enough,
the situations are painted on dramatic lines, for
in no other way could the truth be presented in
a convincing manner; but the poet, true to the
principle on which he has constructed the search
of his Pilgrim, allows in nearly every case the
conditions with which he seems to have the least
sympathy to be developed so as to dramatically
represent their most favourable aspect. In no
'THE CITY OF DREAM' 179
poem do we find more clear evidence of that power
of appealing to Universal Humanity in which,
according to Mr. George Henry Lewes, * lies Mr.
Buchanan's security. The light of nature is
always his guide, the human heart always his
study, and the dumb wistful yearning in man to
something higher' is here changed to notes
which, however wistful, and however inadequate
to express the real condition of the soul, come
nearer to the interpretation of the heart-burn-
ings, doubts, and experiences of the sympa-
thetic modern than anything that has been
attempted by modern poets, not even excepting
Robert Browning.
The argument of this new pilgrimage proceeds
thus: One Ishmael, no longer able to bear the
tumult and the terror, the tears and the sad-
ness of the city where he dwelt, having heard
strange tidings of a Heavenly City, 'green sited,
golden, and with heaven above it,' soft as the
shining of an angel's hair, * where neither comes
rain nor wind nor snow, nor the moans of miser-
able men,' sets forth to seek the same. He had
followed *a melancholy neighbour, old and blind,
named Faith, led by a beauteous snow-white
hound, named Peace,' and as he fares forth he
meets Evangelist, who tells him that the only
possible way to reach the Heavenly City is to go
blindfold, and when he comes among thorns and
flints, * to praise God and pray, and when in some
deep slough thou flounderest, bless God and
struggle through.' Evangelist blindfolds the
i8o ROBERT BUCHANAN
pilgrim Ishmael, leaving sufficient eye-space for
him to gaze down upon a Book, which he gives
to him ; and reading this book, he wanders on,
terrified and blindfold, learning the story of the
creation, temptation, and degradation of the first
man and woman ; of the flood ; of the history of
Abraham and Jacob's race; of King David; of
*pale and wild-eyed kings, the clash of hosts in
carnage, and the shriek of haggard prophets
standing on the heights.' He meets with, or
rather overhears, the protestations and declama-
tion of the old prophet Hurricane, who laughs to
scorn those who seek for a sign, and those who
speak of rights :
Worms, do ye rave of rlg-hts?
I tell you, He who fashion'd you for pain,
And set you in a sad and sunless world.
Scatters your rights as the eternal sea
Loosens the fading foam-bells from its hair.
He wanders on, 'shadow'd with sorrow, smitten
through with sin,' until he comes by chance to the
house of one Iconoclast, who relieves him of the
bandages covering his eyes. They talk together,
Iconoclast calling the Pilgrim a fool, to be led
away by the * fat trencher knave ' Evangelist, who
had bid him
To turn thy face
Into the tomb of dead intelligence ;
To quit mortality and be a mole !
He leads him to an eminence. Mount Clear,
whence he beholds all the Pilgrims of the World.
And it was noon, noon of a cold grey day,
A silvern, melancholy light in heaven,
All calm, the prospects and the distances
Sharp and distinct to vision, but no sun.
'THE CITY OF DREAM' i8l
He beholds the City from which he had travelled,
and other cities like his own, and coming from
each he sees pilgrims toiling to the green slopes
on which he stands. Iconoclast speaking, says :
And in each City thou dost look upon
A different legend and a different God
Lengthen man's misery and make him mad,
and bids him go back to his city, and work his
work, and dream no more of cities in the clouds.
But Ishmael, weary of this 'dreary echo of a
hollow sound bred in an empty heart,' and spying
a Heavenly City ' beyond the scoffer's voice, beyond
these vales, beyond the weary wailings of the sea,'
leaves him, and as he does so, hears a tumult,
in which the tramp of horses' feet and the sharp
yelp of hounds are distinctly mingled, seeing
directly afterwards a great company of Priests,
and hoary crowned Kings and pallid Queens, and
countless slaves, pursuing * In the name of God '
a naked man, who saves himself by seeking refuge
in a house built by Iconoclast, 'to the glory of
God.' He next meets Pitiful, and is directed
towards the City of Christopolis. As he goes, he
accosts many other pilgrims, journeying to the
same city. He reads again in the Book * a tale
so sad and sweet that all the darker matter of the
Book dissolved away like mists around a star.'
He learns of the Man Divine and his sufferings
under the omnipotent and vengeful God, and fears
for his own safety, crying, ' How should this God
have mercy upon men, seeing He spared not His
own anointed son ? ' He is rebuked for blasphemy
i82 ROBERT BUCHANAN
by ' Direful,' high-priest in the Holy City, where is
preached God's thunder and the lightnings of the
Cross. From Direful he hears the creeds of
Christ's Vicars, the popes and priests, and of the
doom which awaits those who do not believe. He
demands why man merits such a doom ; for
That duty the created owes
To the Creator, the Creator, too.
Owes the created. God hath given me life ;
I thank my God if hfe a blessing- is ;
How may I bless Him if it proves a curse ?
Direful replies, that in the city ' neither words, nor
deeds, nor love avail— they are but other names
for vanity,' and that only belief is of use, and pro-
ceeds to enumerate the main doctrines of the
Creed. The Pilgrim leaves Direful and goes
towards the City on a roadway strewn with the
weary and the miserable.
And every face was lighted with the flame
Of famine ; yea, and all like bloodshot stars
Shone forward the one way ; but ah ! the limbs
Were feeble, and the weary feet were sore,
And some upon the wayside fell and moan'd,
And many lay as white and cold as stone
With thin hands cross'd in prayer upon their rags.
Meantime there flash'd along on fiery wheels
Full many a glorious company which bare
Aloft the crimson Cross, and mighty priests
Glode by on steeds bridled with glittering gold,
And delicate wantons on white palfreys pass'd
With soft eyes downcast as they told their beads,
And few of these on those who fell and died
Look'd down, but seem'd with all their spirits bent
To reach the Golden Gate ere fall of night-
Only the priests stoop'd sometimes o'er the dead,
And made the hurried sign o' the Cross, and went.
He passes a ballad-singer on the way, who sings
of * Jesus of Nazareth :
'THE CITY OF DREAM' 183
Tomb'd from the heavenly blue,
Who lies in dreamless death ?
The Jew,
Jesus of Nazareth ! —
and of * Mary Magdalen ' :
I saw, in the Holy City, when all the people slept,
The shape of a woeful woman, who look'd at heaven and wept.
Tall in the moonlit City, pale as some statue of stone.
With the evil of earth upon her, she stood and she made her
moan.
In the crowded highways leading to the City with
*the countless spires like fiery fingers pointing
up to heaven,' he stands aside to let a glorious
company pass, meeting Eglantine, who warns
him that Christopolis is not the City of his quest ;
yet nevertheless he proceeds thither in his new
friend's company ; as they went :
Green were the fields with grass, and sweet with thyme,
And there were silver runlets everywhere.
O'er which the willow hung her tassell'd locks.
And song-birds sang, for it was summer-time,
And o'er the grass, in green and golden mail,
The grasshoppers were leaping, and o'erhead
A lark, pulsating in the warm still air,
Scatter'd sweet song like dewdrops from her wings.
Eglantine tells the Pilgrim of his own soul's
story, and of the history of man before civilisation
and Christianisation were known, 'when man
drank the free sunshine, hungered, and was fed,
and knew not superstition or disease,' before the
Church was formed which ' made that evil which
was fashioned good and blurs the crystal of
Eternity.' His own life had been
A crying out for light that hath not shone,
A sowing of sweet seeds that will not spring,
A prayer, a tumult, and an ecstasy.
i84 ROBERT BUCHANAN
They wander through Christopolis, and see many j
strange sights there, viewing with surprise and '
scorn the contrast of profession and conduct, of
splendour and squalor, of beauty and of filth. ;
They see a hunt of kings, with bloody priests '
for hounds, chasing a heretic across the river. !
Eglantine is charged before the Inquisitor, and
asserts in stout words his eclectic belief, con- i
eluding thus : I
The Everlasting- and Imperishable 1
Eludes me, as the sight of the sweet stars I
That shine uncomprehended yet serene ; i
For nightly, silently, their eyes unclose.
And whoso sees their light, and gazes on it |
Till wonder turns to rapture, seemeth ever,
Like one that reads all secrets in Love's eyes, i
Swooning upon the verg-e of certainty —
Another look, another i^ash, it seems.
And all God's mystery will be reveal'd, :
But very silently they close again, i
Shutting their secret 'neath their silvern lids, 1
And looking inward with a million orbs i
On the Unfathomable far within |
Their spheres, as is the soul within the soul. i
God is their secret ; but I turn to Earth, 'i
My Mother, and in her dark fond face I gaze,
Still questioning until at last I find
Her secret, and its sweetest name is Love : j
And this one word she murmurs secretly j
Into the ears of birds and beasts and men ; ''
And sometimes, listening to her, as she hes \
Twining her lilies in her hair, and watching '.i
Her blind eyes as they glimmer up to heaven, |
I dream this word she whispers to herself
Is yet another mystic name of God.
He is denounced and condemned as an Atheist,
and Ishmael, sympathising, shares the same fate,
and takes refuge beyond a great gate dividing
the City into two parts. Wise men accost him
♦THE CITY OF DREAM' 185
and warn him that peace and assurance are to be
found only in the Book given him by Evangelist ;
but this in his perversity he denies, and casting
away the Book, is again denounced as un-
believing, Ishmael declaring that the only Book
he reads was
God's in the beginning- ; on its front
He set the stars for sig-ns, the sun for seal ;
Golden the letters, brigfht the shining pages,
Holy the natural gospel of the earth ;
Blessed tenfold the language of that Book
For ever open ; blessed he who reads
The leaf that ever blossoms ever tum'd !
and he is driven out of the City into the dreary
region beyond. He meets there one Merciful,
and with him, at the feet of the Calvaries, holds
converse, in the midst of which he tells of those
who, in the hours of darkness, crawl to the feet of
the Cross, and in the hours of light and success
live godless and bloody lives :
Such conscience is an owl that flies by night ;
No sweet white dove that moves abroad by day.
And yet I know, by every breath I breathe.
The Mighty and the Merciful are one :
The morning dew that scarcely bends the flowers,
Inhaled to heaven becomes the lightning flash
That lights all heaven ere noon.
The Pilgrim, declining to kneel to the shapes of
stone, is told by Merciful that he will never escape
the shadow :
On the desert sands.
On the sad shores of the sea, upon the scroll
Of the star-printed heavens, on every flower
That blossoms, on each thing that flies or creeps
'Tis made— the sign is made, the Cross is made —
That cipher which whoever reads can read
The riddle of the worlds.
i86 ROBERT BUCHANAN
He muses on these sayings, and foresees the
destiny laid out for mankind :
To each thing that lives
Is given, without a choice, this destiny —
To be a slayer or a sufferer,
A tyrant or a martyr ; to be weak
Or cruel ; to range Nature like a hawk,
Or fall in cruel talons Uke a dove.
Flying- on, he knows not whither, he encounters
rain and tempest, and takes shelter in a woeful
Wayside Inn, where he meets the Outcasts of all
the creeds— Despair, Isaac, Deadheart, Wormwood,
and others. In this dreary company he discusses
the problems that haunt his soul, and, leaving
them, wanders through the night and encounters
a wild horseman, Esau, who carries him over the
Hills on a horse *maned like a comet, and as
black as clouds that blot a comet's path ' ; and as
they fly through the night past rocks, and crags,
and peaks, and gaunt ravines, he cries, * Whither,
O whither?' and the answer comes 'in a wild
strange song, to which the sobbing of the torrents,
the moaning of the wind, and the beating of the
horse's thunderous feet, kept strange accord ' :
Winds of the mountain, mingle with my crying,
Clouds of the tempest, flee as I am flying,
Gods of the cloudland, Christus and Apollo,
Follow, O follow !
Through the dark valleys, up the misty mountains,
Over the black wastes, past the gleaming fountains,
Praying not, hoping not, resting nor abiding,
Lo, I am riding !
'THE CITY OF DREAM* 187
Clangour and anger of elements are round me, j
Torture has clasp'd me, cruelty has crown'd me, ]
Sorrow awaits me, Death is waiting with her— I
Fast speed I thither ! :
Not 'neath the greenwood, not where roses blossom, j
Not on the green vale on a loving bosom, j
Not on the sea-sands, not across the billow, (
Seek I a pillow ! '
I
Gods let them follow !— gods, for I defy them ! {
They call me, mock me ; but I gallop by them— i
If they would find me, touch me, whisper to me,
Let them pursue me !
Faster, O faster ! Darker and more dreary
Groweth the pathway, yet I am not weary-
Gods, I defy them ! gods, I can unmake them,
Bruise them and break them ! ^
White steed of wonder, with thy feet of thunder.
Find out their temples, tread their high-priests under,— '
Leave them behind thee— if their gods speed after, i
Mock them with laughter.
Shall a god grieve me ? shall a phantom win me ?
Nay— by the wild wind around and o'er and in me —
Be his name Vishnu, Christus, or Apollo-
Let the god follow !
Esau carries him to the Groves of Faun, saying :
And here thy soul
May rest a space and worship at its will
Whatever god thou choosest, or indeed.
May make an idol of its own despair.
And kneeling, pray to that !
Esau holds out to the Pilgrim the satisfaction
both to the soul and body of such a life as he
leads, to whom, after thought, the Pilgrim replies :
Yea, there is wisdom in thy words —
Better to wander up and down the world
All outcast, or in Nature's stormy fanes
To pray in protestation and despair.
i88 ROBERT BUCHANAN
Than in Christopolis with priests and slaves
To g-naw the frozen crust of a cold creed
Amid the brazen glory of a lie.
' Yea,' says Esau :
' Better to be the weariest wave that breaks
Moaning and dying on Thought's shoreless sea,
Than the supremest blossom born i' the wood,
And like a snow-flake shed upon the ground ! '
The Groves of Faun are watched over by the
Shepherd Thyrsis and his child, a maid of sur-
passing beauty. Led by Thyrsis, he sees the
Vales of Vain delight, and after drinking of the
waters of oblivion, beholds the living apparition
of the Greek god Eros.
Suiting the poetical expression to the environ-
ment conceived, the poet finds himself for the
next fifty pages bathed in an atmosphere of
colour. The rigidity of thought and the stern
intellectualism which bathe the environments of
the previous encounters, find their substitutes in
scenes of purple sensuous lights which are a fitting
accompaniment of the Pagan atmosphere which we
are made to breathe. In the vales of vain delight
we hear sung the one song of passion that the epic
contains. Here, where ' pale youths and students
Time had snow'd upon ; gaunt poets, clasping to
the cold breast-bones their harps of gold; and
hunters, gross-mouth'd and lewd ; and kings, that
proffered crowns for one cold kiss,' the song is
sung:
Kiss, dream, and die ! love, let thy lips divine
In one long heavenly kiss be seal'd to mine,
While singing low the flower-crown'd Hours steal by —
'THE CITY OF DREAM' 189
Thy beauty warms my blood like wondrous wine —
While yet the sun hangs still in yonder sky,
Kiss, dream, and die !
Kiss, dream, and die ! — Love, after life comes Death,
No spirit to rapture reawakeneth
When once Love's sun hath sunk in yonder sky —
Cling closer, drink my being, draw my breath, —
Soul answering soul, in one long rapturous sigh,
Kiss, dream, and die !
Despite the splendid spiritualisation and intel-
lectualism of the rest of the book, there is no
doubt that, in the gorgeous imagery of the Pagan
period of the Epic, the poet is at his white
heat of inspiration. In dazzling contrast to the
gloom and sadness, introspection and heart-
searching, of the time when the poet treads the
path with the newer gods, is this kaleidoscope of
fiery imagery, this ever-coloured picture of the
pasture-lands and hunting-grounds of the older
gods. Satyrs, Nymphs, and Fauns fill up the in-
tervals between the moments when the gods front
the picture, and all the world is one continued
song of irresponsible mirth, dreaminess, and in-
dolence. The Pilgrim, like one who sleeps,
tottered heavy-eyed through woods of poppy and
rank hellebore. * In vain ripe fruits were crush'd
against his lips, in vain the branches with their
blossom'd arms entwined around him ; vainly
in his face the naked dryad and the wood-nymph
laughed '—his goal was not in slumbersome Ennui;
his was to find the final answer to the soul's great
question, and it certainly was not to be found
there.
i
190 ROBERT BUCHANAN
By his side walked the old shepherd and his '
daughter. ^
Her face was bright ^
As sunlight, but her lips were poppy-red, \
And o'er her brows and alabaster limbs, \
The lilies and the roses interblent
In that full glory. Raven-black her hair, \
And black her brow o'er azure eyes that swam
With passionate and never-ceasing fires,
Deep hidden 'neath her snows ; most brilliantly
They burnt, but with no trembling, fitful light,
Nay, rather, steady as two vestal fires.
And though their flame was passionately bright, j
Soul-'trancing, soul-consuming, yet it seem'd (
Most virginal and sweetly terrible, i
Chaste with the splendour of an appetite '
That never could be fed on food of earth, i
Or stoop to quench its chastity with less j
Than perfect godhead. a
This perfect godhead in the maid's eyes is the
god Eros, who reveals himself walking Mike a !
slow star sailing through the clouds of twilight, ;
and gliding in the glory of a dream,' and to :
whom the Pilgrim is introduced as one 'from |
the dusty tracts of Time, and a seeker of the '
secret Beautiful no ear hath heard.' ]
The Pilgrim sails with Eros over strange
waters : 1
Then was I 'ware that underneath me throbb'd
Strange vistas, dim and wonderful, wherein
The great ghost of the burning sun did shine
Subdued and dim, amid a heaven as blue.
As blue and deep, as that which burnt o'erhead ;
And in the under-void hke gold-fish gleam'd J
Innumerable Spirits of the lake, ']
Naked, blown hither and thither light as leaves, I
With lilies in their hands, their eyes half closed, \
Their hair like drifting weeds ; thick as the flowers |
Above, they floated ; near the surface some,
And others far away as films of cloud
'THE CITY OF DREAM' 191
In that deep under-heaven ; but all their eyes
Were softly upturn'd, as unto some strange star,
To him who in the shallop's glittering wake
Swam 'mid the light of his lone loveliness.
Then all grew dim ! I closed my heated eyes,
Like one who on a summer hill lies down
Face upward, blinded by the burning blue.
And in my ears there grew a dreamy hum
Of lark-like song. The heaven above my head,
The heaven below my feet, swam swiftly by.
Till clouds and birds and flowers and water-elves
Were blent to one bright flash of rainbow light
Bewildering the sense. And now I swam
By jewell'd islands smother'd deep in flowers
Glassily mirror'd in the golden river ;
And from the isles blue-plumaged warblers humm'd.
Swinging to boughs of purple, yellow, and green,
Their pendent nests of down ; and on the banks.
Dim-shaded by the umbrage and the flowers.
Sat naked fauns who fluted to the swans
On pipes of reeds, while in the purple shallows.
Wading knee-deep, listen'd the golden cranes.
And walking upon floating lotus-leaves
The red jacana scream'd.
As they sail, he holds converse with the god,
who, seeing the Pilgrim gazing on these scenes
which are as hollow as a pleasure snatched in
sleep, murmurs :
Fly from thy dream.
And it shall last for ever ; cherish it,
And it shall wither in thy cherishing !
And thus they glided on :
The wonder deepen'd. Earth and Heaven seem'd blent
In one still rapture, for their beating hearts
Were prest like breasts of lovers, close together ;
until they come, betimes, to an amphitheatre
among mountains, where he finds pilgrims like
unto himself, seeking the solution of the Eternal
j
192 ROBERT BUCHANAN *
i
mystery. Amongst other visions he has one of j
Silenos : '.
For of much peace he told, of golden fields, !
Of shepherds in dim dales Arcadian, 1
Of gods that gather'd the still stars like sheep i
Dawn after dawn to shut them in their folds |
And every dawn did loose them once again, ;
Of vintage and of fruitage, and of Love's '
Ripe kisses stolen in the reaping time ; '
I
and a gorgeous spectacle of the 'ripe rose of |
womanhood supreme,' Helena, 'more fair than !
Cytherea rising from the sea or seated naked on the j
lover's star, strewing the seas beneath her silvern i
feet with pearls and emeralds all a summer night'
After that miracle of womanhood come Argos, '
Clytemnestra, Ida, Cassandra, Agamemnon, Iphi- ,
genia, Orestes, Eteokles, CEdipus, and the !
Eumenides : i
' As the innumerable waves '
Sink after tempest to completest calm, j
For surcease of the mighty tumult pass'd, ,
So these wild waifs of being grow subdued i
To subtle music of sublime despairs ; I
For out of wrath comes love, and out of pain
Dumb resignation brooding like a dove, '
On sunless waters, and of unbelief '
Is born a faith more precious and divine i
Than e'er blind Ignorance with his mother's milk ,
Suck'd smiling down !
And then : |
As he spake,
There came a twittering as of birds on boughs, ^
A music as of rain pattering on leaves ;
And to this murmur the great curtain fell, '
Revealing slopes of greenest emerald i
By shallow rivulets fed with flashing falls, '
And far away soft throbb'd the evening star, \
And everywhere across those pastures sweet j
Moved Lambs as white as snow ! Then as I gazed
I heard Apollo singing on the heights ]
A shepherd's song divine.
'THE CITY OF DREAM' 193
And following Apollo, the daughter of Colonos,
Alcestis, ' pallid from the kiss of Death ' ; the
daughters of Danaos, and the seed of Epaphos
and lo, and the fair Heifer's self, 'as white as
snow, star-vision'd, woman-faced, miraculous,'
and then, * with all the still cold heaven above his
head,' a vision of Prometheus Purkaieus. The
Pilgrim witnesses the sacrificial tragedy of
Cheiron, and the transubstantiation of Eros —
transfigured before the Man Divine, on the cross
of wood.
Hastening from the amphitheatre, he .passes
through the Valley of Dead Gods, seeing in despair
* the empty thrones of heaven,' and wheresoe'er he
trod, the earth was still torn open into graves.
Then methought,
While Heaven and Hell moan'd answer to each other,
And throngs of gods like wolves around a fire
Gather'd, and earth as far as eye could see
Was one wild sea of open graves, that broke
To foam of dead shapes shining in their shrouds,
I heard a voice out of the darkness calling
And weary voices answering as it sang : —
Black is the night, but blacker my despair ;
The world is dark — I walk I know not where ;
Yet phantoms beckon still, and I pursue—
Phantoms, still phantoms ! there they loom— and there !
Adonai ! Lord ! art thou a Phantom, too ?
One strikes— before the blow I bend full weak ;
One beckoning smiles, but fades in act to speak ;
One with a clammy touch doth chill me thro'—
See ! they join hands in circle, while I shriek,
Adonai ! Lord ! art thou a Phantom, too ?
Dark and gigantic, one, with crimson hands
Upstretch'd in protestation, frowning stands.
While tears like blood his night-black cheeks bedew —
He tears his hair, he sinks in shifting sands—
Adonai ! Lord ! art thou a Phantom, too ?
N
194 ROBERT BUCHANAN
The sad, the glad, the hideous, and the bright,
The kings of darkness, and the lords of light.
The shapes I loved, the forms whose wrath I flew,
Now wail together in eternal night —
Adonai ! Lord ! art thou a Phantom, too ?
As he passes through the Valley, he finds his
townsman Faith lying dead and cold. Yet the
Pilgrim dies not, but, * sadder than night, and sun-
less as the grave,' finds himself on a wan
wayside, close to a rain-worn Cross, 'watching
the crimson eyeballs of the dawn,' and holds
speech with Sylvan, whom leaving, he climbs
again upward among mountains, and shelters
with the Hermit of the Mere. Thereon, one
Nightshade leads him up the highest peaks :
The crags and rocks and air-hung precipices
Redden in sunset, and above the peaks,
Upon a bed of crimson, duskly gleam'd
The argent sickle of the beamless morn ;
And lo, the winds had fallen and curl'd themselves
Like tired-out hounds in hollows of the hills,
Restlessly sleeping but from time to time
Audibly breathing ; and deep stillness lay
Upon the mountains and the darkening slopes
Beneath their snows, and the low far-off moan
Of torrents deepening that stillness came
From the untrodden heights ;
and shows him the Spectre of the Inconceivable,
after which sight of wonder he finds himself worn
and old, but emerges in full daylight on the open
way.
The rosy hand of Dawn closed softly o'er
One fluttering moth-like star.
Once more above
The radiant rose of heaven openeth.
Petal by petal, glimmering in the dew.
O bright the morning came, as brightly shining
'THE CITY OF DREAM' 195
Upon the trembling murtherer's raised hair
As on the Httle clenched hand of the babe
Smiling in sleep ! softly the white clouds sail'd,
Edged with vermilion, to the east ; the mists
Rose like white altar-smoke from that green vale,
The forests stirr'd with numerous leafy gleams.
The birch unbound her shining hair, the oak
Shone in his tawny mail, and from the wood
The brook sprang laughing ; and above the fields
The lark rose, singing that same song it sang
On Adam's nuptial morn !
On the open way he first holds parley with
Literal, 'who smiled calm greeting, such as
fellow-scholars give half-absently, when pacing
slow within the groves of Academe,' the talk
being in the grooves of philosophy, in which is
contrasted the cold academic mind of Literal and
the * extra-mural ' enthusiasm of the Pilgrim.
Literal advises the Pilgrim to leave the riddle
of the gods, and quench his sad desire in blessed
toil ; but the Pilgrim, seeing in him ' the sexton of
the creeds — a cold and humorous knave, with
never a guess beyond his spade, and the cold skull
it strikes in digging his own grave,' bids him
farewell, and leaves the pallid scholar far behind.
On every side he meets 'the drowsy stare of
bovine human faces, and hears the hum of hollow
human voices,' until he accosts a student, 'smiling
softly, with the studied scorn of perfect courtesy,'
Microcos by name, another disbeliever in God.
After talk with him he meets with a gentle
stranger, by whom he is guided to the gates of the
City builded without God, a beautiful city, con-
structed and governed on the lines of the latest
conceptions and experiences of scientific man —
196 ROBERT BUCHANAN
where the name of God is never mentioned, where
no spirit is known except the spirit of man.
Down every street
A cooling rivulet ran, and in the squares
Bright fountains sparkled ; and where'er I walk'd
The library, the gymnasium, and the bath
Were open to the sun ; virgins and youths
Swung in the golden air like winged things,
Or in the crystal waters plunged and swam,
Or raced with oiled limbs from goal to goal ;
And in the hush'd and shadowy libraries,
Or in the galleries of painted art.
Or in the dusk museum, neophytes
Walk'd undisturb'd, and never sound of war,
Clarion or trumpet, cry of Priest or King,
Came to disturb the City's summer peace ;
And never a sick face made the sunlight sad.
And never a blind face hunger'd for the light.
And never a form that was not strong and fair
Walk'd in the brightness of those golden streets.
His weary wanderings and experiences in this
city, Matest and fairest of any built by Man,' are
detailed. How he grew heart-sick at the life that
was governed by mathematics and machinery, how
his soul is stirred to anger by the priests of the
laboratories whose ready methods to destroy the
infirm and frail infants, and whose vivisection
experiments, his soul protests against. A time
comes when, sickened and afraid, he forsakes the
city and flees on into the region of Monsters and
strange births of Time. At last, in the winter of
his pilgrimage, he beholds the old man 'Masterful,'
who becomes his guide to the brink of the Celestial
Ocean. Lone on the heights they stand, while the
daylight fades,
While the hand of Night
Hung closed a moment o'er the rayless snows,
Then open'd suddenly, and from its grasp
Loosen'd one lustrous star !
*THE CITY OF DREAM' 197
Then with reverent eyes upgazing, and upon his
pallid face light falling faintly from a million
worlds, the old man spoke :
Thou seekest God — behold thou standest now
Within His Temple. Lo, how brilliantly
The Altar, fed with ceaseless starry fires,
Burns, for its footstool is the mountain-peaks,
The skies its star-enwoven panoply ! —
Lo, then, how silently, how mystically,
Yonder unsullied Moon uplifts the Host,
While from the continents and seas beneath.
And from the planets that bow down as lambs,
And from the constellations clustering
With eyes of wonder upon every side.
Rises the murmur which Creation heard
In the beginning- ! Hearken ! Strain thine ears !
Are they so thick with dust they cannot hear
The plagal cadence of the instrument
Set in the veiled centre of the Shrine ?
Standing on those mysterious shores, the highest
peak of earth, he sees a ship of Souls, and * lo,
methought these spirits of men and women which
seemed to float before him sang in piteous human
tones, which found an echo in the Pilgrim's soul,
this song :
Unseen, Unknown, yet seen and known
By the still soul that broods alone
On visions eyesight cannot see.
By that, thy seed within me sown,
Forget not me !
Forget me not, but hear me cry.
Ere in my lonely bed I lie.
Thus stooping low on bended knee.
And if in glooms of sleep I die.
Forget not me !
Forget me not as men forget,
But let thy light be with me yet
Where'er my vagrant footsteps flee.
Until my earthly sun is set.
Forget not me !
I
1
(
1
198 ROBERT BUCHANAN '
Though dumb thou broodest far away, I
Beyond the night, beyond the day, I
Across the great celestial Sea, 1
Forget me not, but hear me pray |
' Forget not me ! ' I
By the long path that I have trod, j
The sunless tracks, the shining road, 1
From forms of dread to forms of thee, |
By all my dumb despairs, O God, 1
Forget not me ! I
Forget not when mine eyelids close,
And sinking to my last repose,
All round the sleeping dead I see, 1
Yea, when I sleep as sound as those, \
Forget not me ! I
Though deeper than the deepest Deep
Be the dark void wherein I sleep,
Though ocean-deep I buried be,
I charge thee, by these tears I weep.
Forget not me ! ;
Remember, Lord, my hfelong quest, 1
How painfully my soul hath prest ;
From dark to hght, pursuing Thee ; j
So, though I fail and sink to rest, '
Forget not me ! i
Say not ' He sleeps— he doth forget
All that he sought with eyes tear-wet —
'Tis o'er— he slumbers— let him be ! '
Though I forget, remember yet — \
Forget not me ! !
Forget me not, but come, O King, |
And find me softly slumbering
In dark and troubled dreams of Thee — ;
Then, with one waft of Thy bright wing, >
Awaken me !
r
And as the ship vanishes in the cerulean haze,
the Pilgrim awakens, and knows that all he has {
seen— yea, all his spirit's lifelong quest— has been '
only a Dream within a Dream.
'THE CITY OF DREAM' 199
There is so much elaboration of the scenery
against which move the various characters in
the epic, there is so much detail in the various
movements of the characters, that it has been
impossible to give anything but the vaguest idea
of the scope and general significance of the poem.
The particular grandeur, and the poetic success
achieved in such a chapter as * The Amphitheatre,'
have led us in fact to treat that portion of the
epic in the most cursory manner, as any attempt
to indicate its strength and beauty could only
have ended in dismal failure. All we have
attempted is to place on record the numerous
paths taken by the Pilgrim in his wanderings,
and to suggest the various environments and
different philosophic standpoints that came in his
way, in his long and weary question for some
solution of the Eternal mysteries. It will be seen
that the poet remains absolutely true to experience,
in that whatsoever circumstances and surround-
ings the Pilgrim is placed, he never loses what,
after all, is the most clinging and the most im-
portant environment, that of his own tendencies,
his own fears, passions, and prejudices.
For the form and style of the work the poet
owes no apology. It illustrates once more the
theory of poetical expression that has guided him
throughout his career: 'the theory that the end
and crown of Art is simplicity, and that words,
where they only conceal thoughts, are the veriest
weeds, to be cut remorselessly away.' With-
out troubling ourselves much with the critical.
200 ROBERT BUCHANAN
appreciation and depreciation that met the work at
its publication, we may be allowed to quote Mr.
Lecky's words spoken at the Royal Academy.
'The illustrious historian of the Crimean War
(Kinglake) has completed his noble historic
gallery. And if it be said that this great master
of picturesque English was reared in the traditions
of a more artistic age, I would venture to point
to a poem which is destined to take a prominent
place in the literature of our time. I refer to " The
City of Dream," by Robert Buchanan. While
such works are produced in England, it cannot, I
think, be said that the artistic spirit in English
literature has very seriously decayed.'
CHAPTER IX
'THE WANDERING JEW'i AND 'THE BALLAD OF
MARY THE MOTHER'
'The Wandering Jew,' published in 1893, although
called by the poet a Christmas Carol, yet may in
reality be considered the epic poem, to which * The
Book of Orm,' published more than twenty years
previously, may be counted the prelude ; in fact, to
those interested in the history of this poem, it may
be mentioned that * The Book of Orm ' has as its
sub-title ' a Prelude to the Epic,' and that in the
first edition, published in 1870, an advertisement
appears, having relation to the epic poem, in
which the very lines which serve to preface * The
Wandering Jew ' are given :
Come Faith, with eyes of patient heavenward gaze !
Come Hope, with feet that bleed from thorny ways !
With hand for each, leading those twain to me,
Come with thy gifts of grace, fair Charity !
Bring music too, whose voices trouble so
Our very footfalls as we graveward go,
Whose bright eyes, as she sings to Humankind,
Shine with the glory of God which keeps them blind.
In the volume published in 1893 are added some
further lines, of which the following may be
quoted :
Come, muses of the bleeding heart of Man,
Fairer than all the Nine Parnassean,
1 Quotations by kind permission of Messrs. Chatto and Windus.
201
202 ROBERT BUCHANAN
Fairer and clad in grace more heavenly
Than those sweet visions of Man's Infancy,
Come from your lonely heights -with song and prayer,
To inspire an epic of the world's despair !
To prove that Light Divine is never sought in vain.
In a note to the second edition of the poem, Mr.
Buchanan says : * I wished to appeal to those with
whom Religion, real Religion, is an eternal verity.
My poem was neither for the Pharisee who
follows Jesus amongst the formulas of theology,
nor for the Sadducee who interprets him through
the letter of literature. It was meant to picture
the absolute and simple truth as I see it, the
presence in the world of a supreme and suffering
Spirit who has been, and is outcast from all human
habitations, and most of all from the Churches
built in his Name. It is not a polemic against
Jesus of Nazareth ; it is an expression of love for
his personality, and of sympathy with his un-
realised Dream. ... He survives and will survive
as a Divine Ideal, a pathetic Figure, searching
Heaven in vain for a sign, for a token that he has
not failed He is asking himself, after eighteen
hundred years of weary effort, the terrible question
which I have put into his mouth: "After all, are
men worth saving ? " The only affirmative answer
to that question would be the existence in the
world of Christ-like men. When human beings
really begin to love one another, when War and
Prostitution have left the earth, when the wicked
no longer reign, when the selfish and base cease
'THE WANDERING JEW 203
to flourish and the poor cease to starve and die,
when Woman emerges from her long degradation
and Man ceases to be her willing slave, the Christ
may answer "Yes." Then perhaps the God whom
he now seeks vainly may vouchsafe him a sign,
and so enable him to fulfil his beautiful promise ;
but till then, he will wander on, as he wanders on
now, in spiritual weakness and despair.'
As our work is with Mr. Buchanan alone, and
not with his critics, with whom we have at times
been associated, it will be unnecessary for us to
enter into any lengthy consideration of that re-
markable controversy which * turned the head ' of
the Press, especially the English Metropolitan
Press, at the time of the publication of these
poems. * Major and minor ' litterateurs, log-rollers,
priests, pedants and prigs, would-be satirists and
heartburning Socialists joined in the affirmation
and denial of the question phrased in a sporting
key, *Is Christianity played out?' Men, long
encumbered by the tyranny of environment and
habit, broke their bonds and spoke as they never
spoke before. The eclectic spirit was rampant;
and even the Church itself, humble perhaps
before the terrible indictment of the poet, drank
in a temporary draught of eclecticism.
In one of a series of letters to the * Daily
Chronicle,' Mr. Buchanan further elaborated his
position in reference to the spirit and object of his
poem. ' I distinguish absolutely,' he said, * between
the character of Jesus and the character of
Christianity— in other words, between Jesus of
204 ROBERT BUCHANAN
Nazareth and Jesus the Christ. Shorn of all
supernatural pretensions, Jesus emerges from
the gross mass of human beings as an almost
perfect type of simplicity, veracity, and natural
affection. " Love one another " was the Alpha and
Omega of his teaching, and he carried out the
precept through every hour of his too brief life.
Then, looking round on his fellows, realising the
extent of human misery and perceiving the follies
of human existence, he thought, "Surely there
must be some Divine solution to the problem.
Surely there must be another and a fairer life to
justify a life so ephemeral." Therein he was right ;
without some such justification this life of ours
is only dust and ashes. But with his insight
began his sorrow. He turned from this world as
from something, in its very nature, base and
detestable. He conceived the soul as removed
altogether from the necessities and privileges of
the flesh. . . . He dreamed of a Divine kingdom
where every riddle would be solved, the wicked
would cease from troubling and the weary would
be at rest; but in so doing, he forgot that the
Divine kingdom, if it is to exist at all, must begin
where God first localised it on this planet. The
whole thesis of my poem, then, is this, that the
Spirit of Jesus, surviving on into the present
generation, still stands apart from the strife and
tumult of the human race ; and, most of all, from
Christianity. In my arraignment of Jesus before
humanity, I have not feared to state the whole
case as conceived by men against him, to chronicle
'THE WANDERING JEW 205
the endless enormities committed in his name. . . .
The whole aim of the work is to justify Jesus
against the folly, the cruelty, the infamy, the
ignorance of the Creed upbuilt above his grave.
I show, in cipher as it were, that those who cruci-
fied him once would crucify him again, were he
to return amongst us. I imply that among the
first to crucify him would be the members of his
own Church. But nowhere do I imply that his
soul, in its purely personal elements, in its tender
and sympathising humanity, was not the very
divinest that ever wore earth above it. He judged
men far too gently, he was far too sanguine about
human perfectibility.
'According to my critics, it is secularism, not
Christianity, which is played out "intellectually."
If they mean by secularism the base and irreverent
spirit which gibes and mocks at the beautiful
dream of Jesus, and in so doing defames the
stainless elder brother of all suffering men, I am
cordially at one with them ; but if they mean by
secularism the spirit which rejects all compromises
and frauds, however innocent, which affirms that
the business of humanity is not to wear sackcloth
and ashes, but to enlarge the area of its own
happiness, and which incidentally, by way of
illustration, points out the evils that other-
worldliness has brought on man, I take leave to
say, that at no time in the world's history has
secularism exercised so benign an influence over
the lives of all who think and feel. It is secularism
that is hastening on the cause of moral and
2o6 ROBERT BUCHANAN
intellectual freedom in every land, spreading
abroad the good news that science is beginning to
formulate the laws of life, asserting in the face of
all selfish institutions that human nature has a
right not merely to its daily bread, but to its daily
love and joy. It is only in so far as Christianity is
itself secular that it is of the slightest influence
upon the age in which we live. Personally I can
find no words too strong to express my admiration
of those " Christians " who are devoting themselves
to charitable work among the poor, ministering
tenderly to the needs of their suffering brethren,
going forth (like Father Damien) to face disease
and death itself at the call of religious duty. But
these men are sacrificing themselves, not because
they are Christians but because, like Jesus, they
are practically indifferent to all dogmatic creeds.
They take the name, and wear the livery, of the
Christian Church, but they are in reality secularists
of the highest and noblest type.
'There is nothing, I think, which so amazes a
dispassionate observer of human progress as the
feats of moral legerdemain of which Christianity,
so-called, is capable. Its history is one of endless
cruelties and countless horrors. Its constant
effect has been to paralyse human activity, and
to pervert every beautiful human instinct. Its
teachers and preachers have been from age to
age the enemies of human thought. Yet on
the score of the beautiful words spoken by its
founder, Christianity has, with overmastering
arrogance, claimed for itself every great moral
'THE WANDERING JEW 207
victory that men have achieved. As well might
it be claimed, on the score of the almost equally
beautiful words of Pagan philosophers, that the
victories of civilisation have been achieved by
Paganism. . . .
'Well, the dream of Jesus was of God, and so
is ours. That it will be realised somehow and
somewhere is my living faith. Nothing beautiful
or true can perish, and this world would be a
charnel-house if eternal death were possible.
But Christ, the supreme sufferer, must admit at
last that suffering is not Godhead, that the foun-
tain of life cannot be one of tears ; in a word, he
must add to his endless transformation the trans-
formation into the supreme secularist cognisant
of all the necessities and realities of existence.
He has already, in conjunction with Buddha, with
Socrates, and with Seneca, ay, with Walt Whit-
man, shown a decisive insight into the possibilities
of human self-sacrifice and human affection. . . .
I have granted that the creed of Christendom is
not the creed of Christ, that Christ himself
would have shuddered— nay, does shudder— at
the abominations committed century after century
in his name. But it is because the nebulse of
his love never cohered to an orb of rational
polity; because mere sentiment can never save
man till it changes into a science of life ; because
if this world is not something joyful and beautiful,
all other worlds are dismal delusions, that Christ's
message to humanity has been spoken in vain.
Human love and self-respect, human science and
208 ROBERT BUCHANAN
verification, human perception of the limitation of
knowledge, have done more in half a century to
justify God and prove the Godliness of life, than
the doctrine of other-worldliness has done in
nineteen hundred years.'
The poem opens in London, where the poet is
wandering late in the City's streets, sick at heart
and chill, when he hears a feeble voice at his
side crying in hollow human accents, * For God's
sake, mortal, let me lean on thee!' and *a thin
hand crept into mine own, clammy and cold as
clay.' It is Christmas Eve, snow had just ceased
falling, and the poet's musings were on life and
death, and on God and man ; and thinking of
'the blinded herd who eat the dust and ashes
of the Word, of the vanity of Christ's death to
save the world and to vanquish Death, and of
his now rising again,' he cries :
The golden dream is o'er,
And he whom Death has conquered wakes no more.
He becomes aware of the presence of one with
'reverend silver beard and hair snow-white and
sorrowful,' and he hears again the tremulous
voice. He implores the ancient wight to lean on
him, and as he does so, asks from whence he
comes and whither he goes :
Thereon, with deep-drawn breath and dull, dumb stare,
' Far have I travelled, and the nig-ht is cold,'
He murmur'd, adding feebly, ' I am old.'
He spake like one whose wits are wandering.
And strange his accents were, and seem'd to bring
The sense of some strange region far away.
'THE WANDERING JEW 209
And like a caged Lion gaunt and gray
Who, looking thro' the bars, all woe-begone,
Beholdeth not the men he looketh on,
But gazeth thro' them on some lonely pool
Far in the desert, whither he crept to cool
His sunburnt loins and drink when strong and free,
Ev'n so with dull dumb stare he gazed thro' me
On some far bourne.
He is full of pity for the man, with his heavy
snow of years, the furrow'd cheeks, his wintry
eyes, and his hand 'dank as the drown'd dead,'
who is hungry and athirst, and has no place
to rest his head. Across the sight of the poet
flashes ' a glamour of the Sleepers of the Night,'
'the sweet sleep of little children, the sleep of
dainty ladies, and of beggarmen ' :
These visions came and went, each gleaming clear
Yet spectral, in the act to disappear ;
I mark'd the long streets empty to the sky,
And every dim square window was an eye
That gazing dimly inward saw within
Some hidden mystery of shame or sin, —
Lovebed and deathbed, raggedness and wealth,
Pale Murder, tiptoe, creeping on in stealth
With sharp uplifted knife, or haggard Lust
Mouthing his stolen fruit of tasteless dust.
The poet offers the weary man his humble
hospitality; and as they go together, they pass
the mighty Abbey :
And suddenly that old Man cried aloud,
Lifting his weary face and woe-begone
Up to the painted window-panes that shone
With frosty glimmers, ' Open, O thou Priest
Who waitest in the Temple ! ' As he ceased,
The fretted arches echoed to the cry.
And with a shriek the wintry wind went by
And died in silence.
210 ROBERT BUCHANAN
A frozen smoke of incense that did creep
From Life's deserted Altar
is hung over the city :
The pulses of its heart scarce felt to beat,
Calm as a corpse, the snow its windings-sheet,
The sky its pall ' ;
and the poet passes on with the old man weary
and footsore, questioning him as to his kindred,
his name, his place of birth. In answer to which
the old man cries :
' For ever at the door of Death
Faintly I knocked, and when it openeth
Would fain creep in, but ever a Hand snow-cold
Thrusteth me back into the open wold,
And ever a voice intones early and late
" Until thy work is done, remain and wait ! "
And century after century I have trod
The infinitely weary glooms of God,
And lo ! the Winter of mine age is here ! '
And as he stands there, 'the consecration of a
vast despair,' the poet deems him 'Ahasuerus,
the Wandering Jew.' Then the soul of the poet
almost bursts in pity for him who cannot die :
Death is the one good thing beneath the sky.
Death is the one sweet thing that men may see.
• • • • • • •
Yes, Death is best, and yet I cannot die.
A Glamour of the Dead passes before the poet's
vision; the dead in the field of battle, the dead
* in the great graveyard strewn with moonbeams
chill like bleaching shrouds,' and the dead at
the ' oozy bottom of the Sunless Sea ' ; while the
Jew prays :
'THE WANDERING JEW 211 I
' Father which art in Heaven,' the old Man said, ,
' Thou from the holy shelter of whose wing
I came an innocent and shining thing,
A lily in my hand, and in mine eyes, .
The passion and the peace of Paradise,
Thou who didst drop me gently down to rest I
A Uttle while upon my Mother's breast, |
Wrapt in the raiment of a mortal birth, I
How long, how long, across thy stricken Earth j
Must I fare onward, deathless ? ' i
i
Soon after this the poet sees the bloody stigmata !
of the Cross, and discerns that this is not Ahasu- '
erus but 'that diviner Jew, who like a Phantom !
passeth everywhere, the World's last hope and
bitterest despair. Deathless, yet dead.' Re-
covering from the swoon into which this revela-
tion has thrown him, the poet gazes up, 'blink-
ing his eyes for dread of some new brightness.'
The Man Forlorn smiles ' even as a Father looking
on a child ' :
Ay me ! the sorrow of that smile ! 'Twas such
As singer ne'er may sing or pencil touch ! —
But ye who have seen the light that is in snow.
The glimmer on the heights where sad and slow
Some happy day is dying— ye who have seen
Strange dawns and moonlit waters, woodlands green
Troubled with their own beauty ; think of these.
And of all other tender images.
Then think of some beloved face asleep
'Mid the dark pathos of the grave, blend deep
Its beauty with all those until ye weep,
And ye may partly guess the woe divine
Wherewith that Face was looking down on mine.
The poet falters :
Lord of Life, hast thou arisen ?
• • . . •
Arisen.' Arisen/ A risen !
212 ROBERT BUCHANAN
At the word '
The silent cisterns of the Night were stirred j
And plashed with troublous waters, and in the sky, j
The pale stars clung together, while the cry ;
Was wafted on the wind from street to street !
Like to a dreaming man whose heart doth beat |
With thick pulsations, while he fights to break 1
The load of terror with a shriek and wake, '
The sleeping City trembled thro' and thro' ; i
And in its darkness, open'd to my view ,
As by enchantment, those who slumbered i
Rose from their pillows, listening in dread, |
And out of soot-black windows faces white
Gleamed ghost-like, peering forth into the night ; i
And haggard women by the River dark, I
Crawhng to plunge and drown, stood still to heark ; |
And in the silent shrouded Hospitals, <
Where the dim night-lamp flickering on the walls :
Made woeful shadows, men who dying lay, !
Picking the coverlit as they pass'd away ;
And babbhng babe-like, raised their heads to hear, ^
While all their darkening sense again grew clear, ;
And moaned ' Arisen ! Arisen ! ' and in his cell ,'
The Murderer, for whom the pitiless bell \
Would toll at dawn, sat with uplifted hair |
And broke to piteous impotence of prayer ! |
The poet has a vision of the Madonna and j
child :
A brightness touched the Babe and cover'd Him,—
Such brightness as we feel in summer days
When hawthorn blossoms scent the flowery ways
And all the happy clay is verdure-clad ;
And the Babe seem'd as others who make glad
The homes of mortals, and the Mother's face
Was Uke a fountain in a sunny place
Giving and taking gladness, and her eyes
Beheld no other sight in earth or skies
Save the blest Babe on whom their light did shine.
Although so lonely and so woe-begone is the old
man, the poet is conscious, as they proceed, of
eyes that glimmered from the dark, and of shapes
that crawled or crouched low on the Bridge,
'THE WANDERING JEW 213
waiting to catch the pity of his eyes, or to
touch his raiment hem ; and then arose sud-
denly what seemed like the clangour and roar
of a storm-torn sea, and 'shrill as shrieks of
ocean birds that fly over the angry waters, rose
the cry of human voices ' ; and suddenly he seems
to find himself upon an open Plain beyond the
City, and before his face rises, with mad surges
thundering at its base, a mountain like Golgotha,
and 'the waves that surged round its sunless
cliffs and caves were human — countless swarms
of Quick and Dead.' The dense cloud of human
forms clamber round the Ancient Man, who trails
along a woeful cross of wood, and as he goes,
bruised, bleeding, and outworn, the phantoms
of Golgotha prick him on with spears, and, laugh-
ing in scorn, shout: 'At last thy Judgment
Day hath come ! '
From this point the poet proceeds to draw
for us, in imagery that seldom fails and often
rises to eloquence of the most passionate and
picturesque order, the trial of Christ before the
Spirit of Humanity. The present writer has
memories of many trials, but all seem dimmed
in comparison with the picture of this ghostly
tribunal, that the daring poet has drawn for
us, out of the very caldrons of his imagination.
We may recall the burning anxieties, the in-
spired rhetoric, of the trial of Warren Hastings ;
we may have ghastly memories of many struggles
for liberty and life in the courts of France at
the time of the Revolution, and stand with awe.
214 ROBERT BUCHANAN
facing our own memories of pictures painted for
us of the horrors of the Committee of Public
Safety ; but however keen our power of recollec-
tion, however bright the colouring of these
pictures of the memory, they all sink into grey-
ness before the purple, the 'thundering' black-
ness of this trial, as conceived in the imagination
of Robert Buchanan.
*In your dreams this thing will haunt you,'
was no idle boast of the poet. No reader of
' The Wandering Jew ' will wipe from his memory
the picture of the lonely Man of Sorrows, stand-
ing on Golgotha mount, washed incessantly by
the seething, bleeding Waters of Humanity, and
having witnessed against him the millions of
those who have fallen by the growth, the de-
velopment, and the politics of the Church founded
in his name. However much we may find that
the logic and the reasoning is turgid and un-
convincing, however much we may be aroused
to protest by occasional irrelevances, however
much the whole spirit of the trial may disturb
our spiritual momentum, and perhaps shock our
sense of what we vaguely term 'reverence,'
which may, after all, be only a voiceless fear,
we will be compelled to own that the poet
has drawn for us a picture, that, for glowing
metaphor, dramatic surroundings, and poetic
atmosphere, stands high among modern poetical
creations. The speech of the advocate of the
bleeding heart of humanity, if not suited for the
cold judicious temperament of a judge, is yet.
'THE WANDERING JEW 215
as a forensic effort directed towards a jury,
powerful by the very majesty of its rhetoric.
The trial opens by an address in words of
simplicity, addressed by the judge to the Christ :
' Thou Shalt be judged and hear thy judgment spoken
Before the World whose slumbers thou hast broken ;
Thou saidst, ' ' I have fought with Death and am the stronger.
Wake to Eternal Life and sleep no longer ! "
And men, thy brethren, troubled by thy crying,
Have rush'd from Death to seek the Life undying,
And men have anguish'd, wearied out with waiting
For the great unknown Father of thy creating.
And now for vengeance on thy head they gather.
Crying, " Death reigns ! There is no God— no Father ! " '
Then in impassioned words the Advocate for
the prosecution commences his long charge
against the accused, telling how Death reigned
since Time began, 'Sovran of Life and change,'
ere the Christ came to break our rest, and that
now, within the flesh of men, there grows
The poison of a dream that slays repose.
The trouble of a mirage in the air ;
and how the Earth has been turned into a lazar-
house by the strife of woeful men, who rend each
other in their search for barren glory and eternal
life. In stately periods he proceeds to record
the chief facts concerning the birth, education,
and career of Christ; how, finding among the
Jewish race the old prophecy of a Messiah, he
threw the royal raiment ready made on his bare
back, and, to clinch his claim, 'proceeded by
simple devices of the wizard's trade ' to perform
miracles; how he rode to Jerusalem and kept
2i6 ROBERT BUCHANAN
his kingly state with publican and sinners, pro-
faned the Holy Temple of the race, and was slain
by his own race. But, he adds, * the Man's black
crime had scarce begun ' :
Had this Man, like the rest of Adam's seed,
Rested within his grave, turned back to dust,
Accepted dissolution, as were just.
Well had it been for him and all man's race !
But * He rose— this Jew,' and for a season hid his
head ; but after years had passed, * mortals began
to see in divers lands a phantom,' who cried, ' I
am the Christ — believe on me, or lose your soul
eternally ! ' Continuing, the Advocate tells of the
fall of Paganism, and ' of all the gentle gods that
gladden'd man '—of how a glory passed away
from the Mother Earth, 'the gladsome mother,
mother of things of clay.' In her name, firstly, ' he
demands justice on her son, this Jew' :
The rumour of his godhead grew ;
Yea, men were conscious of a Presence sad,
Crowned with thorns, in ragged raiment clad,
Haunting the sunless places of the Earth.
Mystic legends of his birth, stories of his miracles
and of his death, were whispered abroad, and
many weary souls worn out with cares.
But chiefly women bruised and undertrod,
Believed this Man indeed the Son of God,—
Because he said, ' The high shall be estranged,
The low uplifted, and the weak avenged.
And blest be those who have cast this world away
To await the dawning of my Judgment Day ! '
Straightway martyrs and ascetics and fanatics
were found on every hand :
*THE WANDERING JEW 217
I deny not that to some, a few
Poor Souls without a hope, without a friend,
The lie brought comfort and a peaceful end ;
Nor (to be just to him we judge, even him,
This Jew, whose presence makes the glad World dim)
That often to the martyr in his prison
He went and whisper'd ' Comfort ! I am risen ' ;
Nor that to sick-beds sad, as Death came near.
He stole with radiant face and whisper'd cheer,
And to the Crucified brought secretly
The vinegar and sponge of Charity !
And secondly, in the name of those
Who in his Name, with calm unbated breath,
Went smiling down the dark descent of Death,
he demands justice on their Christ, this Jew!
From land to land the tidings flew of the Divinity
of Christ, and on every hand, from beggar to king,
came crawling myriads to the baptismal fonts.
And soon 'They set a Priest on High and
crowned him king, next to Christ, next to God ;
and in the Pope's name countless temples rose
where Priests, grown bold, conceived damned
deeds and thoughts befitting Hell':
They went abroad, his Priests, like wolves that scent
Lambs in the field, and slew the innocent ;
The holy Shepherds who in places green
To Isis sang, and Thammuz songs serene
They found and slaughter'd, till their red blood ran
In torrents down the streams Egyptian.
And thirdly, in the name of Pagans 'blest and
blind, who loved the old gods best, for they
were kind,' he demands justice on this Jew. In
bitter tones and passioned words the Advocate pro-
ceeds to paint the pictures of the many devilries
2i8 ROBERT BUCHANAN
that were associated with the Church in the
middle ages :
Now, in the name of vestals sacrificed
To feed the lust of those same priests of Christ,
Of acolyte children tangled in the mesh
Of infamous and nameless filths of flesh.
In the name of those whom King- and Priest and Pope
Cast down to dust, beyond all peace and hope,
Yea, in their names who made this Man their guide,
And curst by men, by him were justified,
I demand justice on their Christ, this Jew !
Passing on, he tells how
in time
The very smile of Life became a crime
Against his Godhead ;
how fathers turned against their children, brother
turned against brother, and sons against their
mother, because the Jew cried, 'Life itself is
shame and sin; break ye all human ties and ye
shall win my realm beyond the grave'; the
world turning from the sunshine of life and
donning the leprous garbs of famine, self-abne-
gation, and martyrdom :
Now in the name of Life defiled and scorn'd.
Of hearts that broke because this Phantom warn'd,
Of weary mothers desolately dying
For sons whose hearts were hardened to their crying.
Of wives made husbandless and left unblest,
Of little children starving for the breast,
Of homes made desolate from sea to sea
Because he said, ' Leave all, and follow me,'
I demand justice on their Christ, this Jew !
After dwelling on the prosecution of those who
sought not the Cross but light, and in the names
of those great souls
Who fathom'd Nature's secret star-some ways,
And read the law of Life with fearless gaze,
'THE WANDERING JEW 219
demanding doom and justice on the Jew, the
Advocate proceeds to call the individual witnesses
'of this Man's crime.'
First, Judas Iscariot, then Ahasuerus, the other
wandering Jew, doomed to walk on from sleepless
year to year, ' because he demanded of the Christ
that he should cast his Cross aside and take a
Throne ' ; Pilate, ' The Roman wars not with such
foes as he'; and then the phantoms of Roman
kingship, Tiberius, Sejanus, and the rest come,
followed by Antichrist himself, who testifies that
though he made the Earth vile to glut his lechery,
the Christ rose not :
To the old Gods I sang
My triumph-song that thro' the nations rang
While Rome was burning ! On my mother's womb
I thrust the impious heel ! Yet from his tomb
This Jesus stirr'd not !
In rapid succession come a throng of martyrs
slain by the Antichrist. ' Crowd after crowd they
passed, and passing, threw a curse or prayer on
him who anguished there ' :
Crown'd with the calm of a divine despair.
Then rose Julian, the apostate :
I heard the wretched weep, the weary moan,
Saw Nature sickening because this Man wrought
To scatter poison in the wells of Thought,
So that no Soul might live in peace and be
Baptized in wisdom and philosophy ;
Wherefore I summoned from their lonely graves
The Spirits of the mountains and the waves,
The tutelary Sprites of flowers and trees.
The rough wild Gods and naked Goddesses,
And all alive with joy they leapt around
My leaf-hung chariot, to the trumpet's sound !
220 ROBERT BUCHANAN
Yea, and I wakened from ancestral night
The human shapes of Healing and of Light,
Asclepios with his green magician's rod,
And Aristotle, Wisdom's grave-eyed god.
And bade them teach the natural law and prove
The eternal verities of Life and Love.
Marcus Aurelius, Hypatia,
' Seeking in the fountains of the past
Strange pearls of Dream and dim poetic thought.'
Mahomet, Buddha,
' star-eyed and sad and very beautiful,
They taught them how to live, I taught them how to die.'
Zoroaster, Menu, Mores, Confucius, Prometheus
all testified and vanished. Following come in
hoards the Vicars of this Christ, the ghostly heirs
of Wisdom and of Woe, the Souls long fled, the
Great, the Just, the Good, who cannot die 'be-
cause this piteous phantom passeth by.' Then
come Galileo, Castillo, and Bruno, 'butchered in
Christ's name,' and myriads of others who sought
to read the open scrolls of Earth and Heaven :
Wherever in their sadness they have sought
To find the stainless flowers of lonely Thought,
Raising the herb of Healing and the bloom
Of Love and Joy, this Man from out his Tomb
Hath stalk'd.
The Advocate declaims :
Save for this Jew,
The luminous House of flesh and blood most fair,
Rainbow'd from dust and water and sweet air,
The green Earth round it, and the Seas that roll
To cleanse the Earth from shining pole to pole,
The Heavens, and Heavens beyond without a bound,
The Stars in their processions glory-crown'd.
Each star so vast that it transcends our dreams.
So small, a child might grasp it, so it seems.
'THE WANDERING JEW 221
Like a light butterfly ! The wondrous screed
Of Nature open lay for Man to read ;
World flashed to world, in yonder Void sublime,
The messages of Light and Change and Time ;
The Sea had voices, and the Spirit of Earth
Had sung her mystic runes of Death and Birth,
Of all the dim progressions Life had known.
And writ them on the rocks in words of stone.
Ghostwise, the procession sweeps along, ' martyrs
of truth and warriors of the right,' Justinian, Du
Molay, Abelard, Eloise, King Frederick, * his step
serene and strong as if he trod on altars,'
Algazali, Alhazen, Petrarch, John Huss, Da
Gama, and Magellan faring forward on his quest ;
' putting the craven cowls of Rome to shame.'
With waving brands pass along the testifiers
of the world who were slain in the Christ's name,
the hosts of Ind, the children of Peru and the
black seed of Ham, and last of all, 'Montezuma,
King and Lord,' with many other monarchs less
than he, and many slain under the banner of the
Crusaders.
After them, the * Followers of the Crucified, the
ravening wolves of wrath that never sleep.'
struggling unto the Judgment place they came.
Smiting each other in their Master's Name ;
Beneath their feet fell women stabb'd and cleft,
And little children anguishing bereft.
And like a River of Blood that ever grew.
They rush'd until they roU'd round that pale Jew,
And lo ! his feet grew bloody ere he was 'ware !
Yet still they smote each other, and in despair
Shriek'd out his praises as they multiplied
Their dead around him. . . . And thus they testified !
The Huguenot, the nun, the Martyrs of the Book
and the Mass, priests of Rome, priests of Luther
222 ROBERT BUCHANAN
swimming past in waves of carnage, with the
Cross of Blood wildly waving o'er, gave place to
Jean Calas, kneeling at the feet of Voltaire,
Holbach, Diderot, 'foes of the Godhead and the
friends of Man,' and, last of all, the seeds of the
Jewish race themselves.
One God we worship, and this Man we slew,
Seeing he took the Holy Name in vain !
And since that hour that he was justly slain.
His hate hath foUow'd us from place to place !
Wherefore, O Judge, we, children of his race,
Scorn'd, tortured, shamed, defamed, defiled, and driven
Outcast from every gate of Earth or Heaven,
Still martyr'd living and still dishonour'd dead,
Demand thy wrath and judgment on his head,
Jesus the Jew, not Christ, but Antichrist !
Like hordes of wolves, fierce, foul and famishing,
the children of the Ghetto pass singing, 'Holy,
holy still thy name shall be, Jerusalem, thro'
God's eternity,' and crying for vengeance on him
who has brought their city to desolation, scattered
their tents, riven their robes, and driven their race
like chaff before the blast, in darkness, ever
homeless, thro' the lands.
With the passing of these children of Israel, the
case for the prosecution ends, and Christ is called
upon to produce those who can and will testify in
his name.
The Jew gazed round, and wheresoe'er his gaze
Shed on that throng its gentle suffering rays.
Tumult and wrath were hush'd, as in deep Night
Great waves lie down to lap the starry light
And lick the Moon's cold feet that touch the Sea.
With gentle accents the weary Christ speaks of
his own life :
'THE WANDERING JEW 223
' I remember, on this my Judgment Day,
Not what is near, but what is far away.
Within my Father's House, I fell to sleep
In dreamless slumber mystical and deep.
And when I waken'd to mine own faint crying.
Above the cradle small where I was lying,
A Mother's face hung like a star and smiled.'
He proceeds to tell how he gradually lost the
memories of his former simple existence and
simple natural thoughts in the thoughts of the
Life Eternal and of his Father's face. Of the
witnesses of the Christ, we have a glimpse of
John the Baptist, who, in the course of his testi-
mony, cries:
' And tho' thy brow
Is furrowed deep with years, I know thee now.
And in the name of all thou wast and art,
God's substance, of the living God a part.
Bear witness still, as I bare witness then.
Before this miserable race of men ! '
Then saw I, as he ceased and stood aside,
Another Spirit fair and radiant-eyed.
Who, creeping thither, at the Jew's feet fell,
And looking up with love ineffable
Cried ' Master ! ' and I knew that I beheld,
Tho' his face, too, was worn and grey with eld.
That other John whom Jesus to his breast
Drew tenderly, because he loved him best !
But even as I gazed, my soul was stirred
By other Shapes that stole without a word
Out of the silent dark, and kneeling low
Stretched out loving hands and wept in woe ;
The gentle Mother of God grown grey and old.
Her silver hair still thinly sown with gold,
Mary the wife, and Mary Magdalen,
Who murmur'd, ' Lord, behold thy Handmaiden,
And kiss'd his feet, her face so sadly fair
Hid in the shadows of her snow-strewn hair ;
And close to them, as thick as stars, appear'd
224 ROBERT BUCHANAN
Faces of children, brightening as they near'd '
The presence of their Father : and following these, ]
Pallid Apostles, falling upon their knees.
Crying, ' Messiah — Master — we are here ! ' '
I
Of other witnesses, the Apostle Paul speaks thus :
And I upraised
Temples of marble where thy flocks might pray,
And where no Temple was from day to day,
I made the earth thy Temple, and the sky 1
A roof for thy Beloved. Lamb of God, !
Thy blood redeem'd the Nations, while I trod ;
The garden of thy Gospel, bearing thence '
Strange flowers of Love and Holy Innocence,
And setting up aloft for all to see \
Thy Huleh-lilies, Faith, Hope, Charity ; ;
And of these three I knew the last was best, j
Because, hke thee, dear Lord, 'twas lowliest ! a
Thy Witnesses ? Countless as desert sands '
Their bones are scatter'd o'er the seas and lands ! ^
Whene'er the Lamp of Life hath sunken low, |
Whene'er Death beckon'd and 'twas time to go, j
Where'er dark Pestilence and Disease had crawl'd, \
Where'er the Soul was darken'd and appall'd, j
Where mothers wept above their dead first-born, 1
Where children to green graves brought gifts forlorn
Of flowers and tears, where, struck 'spite helm and shield,
Pale warriors moan'd upon the battlefield.
Where Horror thicken'd as a spider's mesh
Round plague-smit men and lepers foul of flesh,
Where Love and Innocence were brought to shame,
And Life forgot its conscience and its aim.
Thy blessing, even as Light from far away.
Came bright and radiant upon eyes of clay
And turn'd the tears of pain to tears of bliss !
Nay, more, to Death itself thy loving kiss
Brought consecration ; he, that Angel sad,
Ran like a Lamb beside thee, and was glad.
When he ceased, shapes of dead saints arose, a
shining throng, shouting, * Hosannah to the Lord ! '
while the fierce anger of the hosts around gave
vent to a wild cry for Judgment on the Jew. Far
as the sight could penetrate the blackness of the
'THE WANDERING JEW 225
Night, stretched the multitudinous living sea,
the angry waters of Humanity, and the Man
Divine seemed like a lonely Pharos on a rock.
While the Judgment is being spoken, 'the grey
mother to his bosom crept, and the other Mary,'
who held him dear for the human love within
his eyes, both yearning to share his failure or his
glory. With piteous, eloquent voice Christ pours
forth to that turbulent ocean of yearning humanity
his heart's blood. ' Ye hungered, and I fed ye. Ye
thirsted, and I gave ye drink. Ye revelled, and I
moaned without your door, outcast and cold. Ye
sinned in my name, and flung me the remnant of
your shame. All I sowed in love, ye reaped in
scorn.'
Woe to ye all, and endless woe to me,
Who deem'd that I could save Humanity.
I plough'd the rocks, and cast in rifts of stone
The seeds of Life Divine that ne'er have grown.
And as he stands there, * serene and luminous as
an Alpine peak shining above these valleys,' his
Doom is spoken :
' Thou Shalt abide while all things ebb and flow,
Wake while the weary sleep, wait while they go,
And treading paths no human feet have trod.
Search on still vainly for thy Father, God ;
Thy blessing shall pursue thee as a curse
To hunt thee, homeless, thro' the Universe ;
No hand shall slay thee, for no hand shall dare
To strike the godhead Death itself must spare !
With all the woes of Earth upon thy head,
Uplift thy Cross and go. Thy Doom is said.'
• ••■••■
And lo ! while all men come and pass away,
That phantom of the Christ, forlorn and gray,
Haunteth the Earth with desolate footfall. . . .
226 ROBERT BUCHANAN
The poet ends this epos of the World's despair
with the prayer :
God help the Christ, that Christ may help us all !
We have here at some length, and yet in a very
superficial manner, taken a glimpse at the general
character of this strange Christmas carol. Not
losing sight of the essentially dramatic element in
the poem, we must approach it, not as the majority
of the Press did at the time of its publication, with
a half-concealed sneer, but in the same spirit of
reverence which inspires the poet himself through-
out. There is scarcely a passage that does not
betray the prayer of an almost broken-hearted poet,
seeking for a solution of the meaning of human
misery, human suffering, and human darkness.
It is, as a contemporary says, ' a half-tremulous,
half-wistful wail over the gigantic failure of
Christ ; and the main drift of the poem is love for
Christ, and impatience with the Eternal Father
for His delay in securing him his triumph.'
Whatever its poetic failings, however unfaithful
it is to 'classic tradition,' however ' false to poetry,'
whatever these expressions may mean, it is neither
nebulous nor dishonest. It is the expression, in a
poetical sense, of the aspirations and feelings of
the aspiring modern. Breathing neither the spirit
nor the poetry of Dante and Milton, it is neverthe-
less as true to nineteenth-century aspiration, and
as true to Mr. Buchanan's own conception of
artistic work, as those ancients' works were true
to the spirit of their age, and their conceptions
'BALLAD OF MARY THE MOTHER' 227
of artistic rectitude. The Alpha and Omega of
poetic construction have yet to be written, and as
to the subjects that are legitimate for poetic treat-
ment, the Alpha begins at man's first aspiration,
and the Omega ends at man's last triumphal
song. Thirty years ago Mr. Buchanan had
bewailed the fact that Christianity was quite for-
gotten as a subject for poetry, and in the face of
Philistines and those who would confine the poet
to a fairyland of sylvan ways, and to singing of
patriotic odes, he has essayed here a task, and
succeeded so far in it as to ensure for him a
distinctive place, not only among the singers,
but also among the suggestive and constructive
thinkers of the age. * I would not,' said one
critic, 'give one "Poet Andrew" for a hundred
Wandering Jews.' The poet is quite content— for
those who want 'Poet Andrew' the poem and
other of its class are there ; but the poet has other
business in hand, and another audience to whom
religion is an eternal verity, composed of those who
can only reach intellectual satisfaction and moral
encouragement by aspiring above mere domestic
aspirations and fireside dreaming, and coming with
their souls to the very gates of heaven and hell.
The natural sequence of the poet's thought is
expressed in the poem published four years later,
entitled 'The Ballad of Mary the Mother.' It is
here that we have definitely stated the views which
the poet holds as to the birth and life of Christ,
and the essential factors that go to make up his
place in the economy of human thought and con-
228 ROBERT BUCHANAN
duct. Love for the humanity of the Nazarene
has not been expressed by the poet in stronger
terms than here, a love unaltered through-
out the whole of the period wherein the poet
has evolved his eclectic faith. In a prose note,
Mr. Buchanan says: 'I have thought myself
justified, while trying to realise how Jesus of
Nazareth may have struck a contemporary, in
using as my dramatic mouthpiece his own mother,
the wife of Joseph the Carpenter. All the phases
of my conception can be supported, if necessary,
by the existing Christian documents ; and if they
could not be so supported, they are still justifiable,
since the imagination of a modern poet is fully as
reliable as the imagination of a mediaeval monk.
* Goethe, in his old age, foresaw the time when
Christianity might become a "subject" for Poetry,
a subject, that is to say, to be treated without
reference of any kind to existing dogma or super-
stition. Thanks to modern scientific thought, the
time has come sooner than was anticipated. We
have reached the vantage-ground where the story
of Jesus can be taken out of the realm of Super-
naturalism and viewed humanely, in the domain of
sympathetic Art. To even so late an observer
as Renan, such a point of view was difficult, not
to say impossible. Now, for the first time, human
science has actually uttered its fiat, and written it
on the rock. That fiat is, 'The Law of God is
"never" broken.' Whosoever professes to break
the Eternal Order is ignorant of the Divine
Method— the true Atheist— a^eo^, apart from God.
'BALLAD OF MARY THE MOTHER' 229
It seems a paradox to say so, but in this respect
— ignorance of the Divine Law, assumption of
power to break it or suspend it— Jesus of Nazareth
was an unbeliever, perhaps the most audacious
unbeliever who has ever lived.
* He led the war against Nature, against the
God of Nature, and that unhappy war is not over
yet. But he, the new Prometheus, urging on
his legions of despairing Titans, adopted a new
system of attack— he assumed that the God of
Nature "did not exist"; and he substituted
in his imagination a new Personality, his
own. History has furnished the answer to his
pretensions, and the God of Nature, the great
unknown God who is at once the master and
servant of His own inexorable Will, has conquered
all along the line. God reigns — Jesus and the
Titans have failed ; and their failure has deluged
the world with innocent blood.
* In saying so much, I do not wish to infer that
my sympathy is with the Conqueror. No ; it is
with the fallen Atheists, not with the ever-
victorious Deity whom they have one by one
denied ; with Prometheus, with Jesus ; with the
Dreamers who would fain dry the weeping eyes
of men. Though they turn from the living God
and substitute the gentle Phantom of their
own desire; though they utter a promise which
is ever broken, assume a hope which can never
be realised: they are still, in the sweetest and
surest meaning of the word, our Brethren, and
we forgive them their sins against the eternal
230 ROBERT BUCHANAN
Law, because we, too, would fain dream as they
do. Alas, that the time should come when we
must dream no more !
' Meantime, let it be clearly understood that the
Poets have ever been on the losing side, on the
side, that is to say, of Jesus and the Titan-
Dreamers: and hence the proof of the Poet is
still to be found in his temperamental antagonism
to the God of Nature.
* In this connection, therefore, it is necessary to
repeat with emphasis that it is on the truth or
falsehood of the supernatural pretension that the
" moral " character of Jesus must finally stand or
fall. It was by Miracles that he attested his
divine sovereignty; it was by Miracles that he
won his first following; it was by Miracles that
he proclaimed himself the Son of God ; and with-
out the historical belief in the Miracles Chris-
tianity would have died a natural death in its
first infancy. It is not, indeed, a creed of Love
which has fascinated Humanity. " God is Love,"
cried Jesus; "and my 'proof that God is Love
is this— I can heal the sick, and I can raise the
dead." The whole question, therefore, is reduced
to one of facts, of proof. If we can believe that
Jesus raised the dead, if we can even believe
that any dead man since the world's beginning
has slipt his shroud and arisen, then we need
not hesitate for a moment in accepting the pre-
tensions of Christianity. If, on the other hand,
we believe that the eternal Law is " never " broken,
we need not pause to consider the moral char-
'BALLAD OF MARY THE MOTHER' 231
acter of Jesus. We may accept him (as we are
bound to do) as a man of supremely noble and
loving nature, we may even believe that, in the
assumption of supernatural power, he was merely
self-deluded, not dishonest; but we cannot bow
down before him as either the incarnate God or
even the wisest of men.
' The fit and only platform to discuss and exa-
mine this religion, this many-coloured kaleidoscope
which men call Christianity, is, consequently, our
own experience of human and natural phenomena.
In the light or darkness of our own dwellings,
in the silence of our own thoughts, in the record
of all we have seen, known, and felt, in the pre-
sence of our own beloved ones, and by the sleeping-
places of our own dead, we have to ask ourselves
— has the God of Love, in whom we may other-
wise believe, ever attested his being by any inter-
ruption of his own laws? Has he not, on the
contrary, sealed up the eyes of the blind, left
the leper to die of his disease, forborne to dis-
turb, or even break, the sleep of Death? If
it is borne in upon us, every day we live, that
the laws of life are " never" broken, and that God
has never vouchsafed us a sign, even a glimmer,
of His personal presence, what shall we say of
the folly, or the insanity, of the great Atheists
who have perished miserably in the assumption
of miraculous or God-like power?
' " Grant, indeed," says the bewildered senti-
mentalist, "that the proof has failed, that no
miracle was ever wrought, does not the divine
232 ROBERT BUCHANAN
spirit of Jesus remain secure to pervade crea-
tion?" By no means. The spirit was that of
a deluded sceptic who aspired to break, and
who misinterpreted, the laws of God, and who
perished, of necessity, like a fly on the wheel.
How then, it is asked, has Christianity itself
emerged to save and gladden the souls of men ?
Here, again, our opponents are arguing in a
circle, for the religion of Jesus has never really
triumphed at all, except in the area of priestly
politics and popular superstition. Our time has
been wasted, we have been made the sport of a
kindly thaumaturgist, for nearly nineteen hundred
years.
'Meantime we have constructed, out of the
debris of historical documents, an ideal Jesus,
a fanciful and fictitious Son of God. All the
hope and despair of Humanity, the blood of the
Martyrs, the visions of the Prophets, the dreams
of the Poets, have nurtured this imaginary
Messiah, who sums up in his nebulous person
all that we mortals are, or hope to be. He
heals no sick, he raises no dead, it is true; we
begin to realise at last that he can never have
done so ; but Jesus, like Mesopotamia, is a
blessed word, and we cling to it with fond
tenacity.
' In this poem, however, I at least acquit the
Nazarene of his atheism — that is, I make him
realise, after his momentary madness of supposed
godhead, that the creature who endeavours to
break the Divine Order must meet the Atheist's
'BALLAD OF MARY THE MOTHER' 233
doom. Cruel and inexplicable as that order is,
it is absolute and inevitable. Humanity will never
free itself from its chains by assuming " that they
do not exist." The true believer in God is the
man who discovers and recognises His pitiless
laws, from the first Law till the last. The true
witness to God is the man who, much as he
execrates the anarchy and cruelty of Nature, and
as a consequence of the God of Nature, accepts
things as they are and endeavours to lighten the
burthen for his fellow-men. Jesus was a man
of a beautiful temperament, carried beyond him-
self by a false and sentimental conception of
the mechanism of Life. He uttered, no one so
exquisitely, the human cry for a Divine Father-
hood. But unfortunately, he appealed to Nature
for corroboration of his appeal. Nature never
answered him ; then as now, she kept God's
secret.'
These are strong words, and it is necessary to
quote them to understand to what point the poet
has reached. Mr. Buchanan's hatred of trimming
prevents us daring, even if we so desired in some
way, to mask or modify these expressions. They
are the natural outcome of the position he took
up at first, they are the evolved expression of the
idea he conceived when he wrote 'The Book of
Orm ' ; we doubt not that the genesis of these fully
expressed ideas could be found even in earlier
days. There is little need now in questioning Mr.
Buchanan as to his views ; he may be met squarely
and openly on the wide field where myriads of
234 ROBERT BUCHANAN I
thinkers have long taken their stand and wrestled \
—on the basis of pure, abstract thought. He still ^
remains after it all a * Believer,' and from a
Catechism appended to this particular poem we
extract the following : H
Dost thou believe in Jesus Christ, God's Son ? 1
In Him, and in my Brethren every one : ^
The child of Mary who was crucified, *
The gods of Hellas fair and radiant-eyed,
Brahm, Balder, Guatama, and Mahomet,
All who have pledged their gains to pay my debt
Of sorrows, — all who through this world of dream
Breathe mystery and ecstasy supreme ;
The greater and the less : the wise, the good,
Inheritors of Nature's godlike mood ;
In these I do believe eternally.
Knowing them deathless, like the God in me.
Dost thou not in thine inmost heart believe.
Despite the lies 2vhich faithless sophists weave.
In Holy Church ?
All Churches, great or small !
But most, that roof 'd with blue celestial.
And fairer far than Temples built by hands, ^^
Which, while all others fall, survives and stands ! %
More, I believe in Hell, and hope for Heaven ! 11
Yea, also, that my fears may be forgiven, .'I
And that this Body shall arise again
To Light and Everlasting Life. AMEN. I
Name the Commandments !
Ten. Thou shalt have one
God, and one only (may His will be done !)
Thou shalt not fashion graven images ;
Of Him, or any other, and to these
Give prayer or praise ; nor shall thy faith be priced
By any priest of Christ or Antichrist,
In any Temple or in any Fane ;
Thou shalt not take the Name of God in vain. i
All days shalt thou keep holy, pure and blest, I
Six shalt thou labour, on the seventh rest, \
•BALLAD OF MARY THE MOTHER' 235
I
But every day shall as a Sabbath be <
Of heavenly hope and love and charity. '
Honour thy father and thy motherj— not ]
That God may lengthen and make bright thy lot,
But that the love thou bearest them may spring i
Fountain-like to refresh each living thing
Which lives and loves like thee. Slay not at all,—
Neither to feed thy wrath, nor at the call j
Of nations lusting in accursed strife,
Nor to appease the Law's black lust for life ;
But take the murderer by the hand, and bring
Pity and mercy for his comforting. 1
Tho' thou must never an Adulterer be, j
Deem not the deed of kind Adultery, |
But reverence that function which keeps fair
The Earth, the Sea, the Ether, and the Air,
And peopling countless worlds with lives like thine,
Maketh all Nature fruitful and divine ; I
For as thou dost despise thy flesh and frame j
Shalt thou despise the Lord thro' whom they came.
And if one act of these thou deemest base
Thou spittest in the Fountain of all Grace.
Thou shalt not steal, nor any lie sustain j
Against thy neighbour ; covet not his gain,
His wife, or ought that 's his to have and hold.
For robbing him, thou robb'st thyself tenfold !
What dost thou learn from these Commandments ?
Love
For things around me, and for things above
Worship and reverence ; hate of deeds that sin
Against the living God who dwells within
This Temple of my life ; obedience
To that celestial Light which issues thence.
The * Ballad ' is written in the metre familiar
to all who know the poet's * Ballad of Judas
Iscariot.' The opening stanzas are reproduc-
tions in verse of those words of the New
Testament which tell of the coming of Mary
the Mother to the door of the Synagogue and
asking for her Son, and of the answer Jesus
gave: 'These are my mother, these are my
236 ROBERT BUCHANAN
brethren.' We are told how Mary was left weep-
ing sore while Jesus passed on his heavenward
way:
He turned away from his mother's face
To his Father's face in heaven.
, . « . •
As he wandered on from door to door,
She followed him from afar ;
His face was bright as the moon in heaven,
And hers like a lonely star.
The whole poem, indeed, pictures the loneliness
of the Mother in the loss of the love of a perfect
human Son, by his assumption of the claims of
Godhead. Never was higher tribute paid to
womanhood than the poet has paid here to the
dove-eyed woman of Galilee, and equally eloquent
in its tribute of pure manhood and graceful son-
hood is the picture of the infant Jesus. With
the heart's desire of the Son sprung the yearn-
ing of the Mother for the love that she had
lost, a love which never changed, and was
jfiercest in its intensity when, after the storm
and the stress, the weary ' dreamer,' the crucified
Christ, the dead Son was clasped to the mother's
breast.
The two Marys, Mary the Mother and Mary
the Maiden, sit in the bower in a high seat and
alone, while the white-robed sewing maiden is
moving to and fro, the weariful mother telling
to the other Mary the story of her life :
As fair as the Huleh-lily
That blooms in the summer beam,
Was Mary the Maiden, wearing
Her robe of the silken seam ;
'BALLAD OF MARY THE MOTHER' 237 j
And on her hair and her bosom
Were jewels and gems of price,
And round her neck there was hanging i
A charm with a strange device : j
A heart of amber, and round it '
Ruby and emerald bands,
And over it, wrought in crystal, '
Two little winged hands !
White and warm was her bosom "
That rose and fell below.
And light on her face was playing.
Deep, like the after-glow ; I
With the waves of her heaving bosom
That strange light went and came,
Now dim and dark with the shadow of earth, '
Now flush'd with a heavenly flame ; |
I
And the warmth of the glad green meadows, j
The scent of the Night and the Day, '
Flowed up from Mary the Maiden
To Mary the old and grey.
1
There is much love between the two, the Mother
poor and lonely in lot, and the other Mary who
is painted here as one of high birth ; the mutual
feeling springing from the love which the latter
bears for the man Jesus :
'Twas Mary, the woeful Mother,
Bent down and kissed her brow,
' God help thee, Mary, my daughter,
And all such maids as thou !
' His love is not for the things of earth.
His blessing for things of clay,—
A voice from the Land beyond the grave
Is calling my Son away !
' How should he stoop to a love like thine
Who hath no love for me ?
In my womb he grew, from my womb he fell,
And I nursed him on my knee.'
238 ROBERT BUCHANAN
'Twas Mary, the dark-eyed Maiden,
Smiled through her night-black hair :
' I met his eyes as he passed this day,
And methought he found me fair !
' There is never a man of the sons of men
Who would not smile on me,
But if thy Son is more than a man,
Alack for me and thee !
' But if thy Son is Joseph's son,
E'en as his brethren be.
Why, I am Mary of Magdala !
And a King might mate with me.
'Twas Mary, the woeful Mother,
Answered again, and said :
' The love of the world is not for him,
Nor the happy bridal bed !
* He has cast away all women of earth
Even as he casts out me, —
In my womb he grew, from my womb he fell.
And I nursed him on my knee.'
With rending heart the Mother speaks of her
loss and what it meant to her, and with gentle
and suggestive words she disavows the Godhead
of her Son :
' The God of Israel passeth
From world to world on high,
The seas and the mighty mountains
Quake as He passeth by ;
' No eye hath looked upon Him,
No soul hath fathom'd His ways.
His face is veil'd, though His breathing
Filleth our nights and days ;
' His Hand is a Hand in the darkness,
His Voice is a Voice in the gloom,
But seed of Jehovah hath never
Been sown in a woman's womb.'
The betrothal to Joseph is told of, and the
agony of the Mother, who already knew that
'BALLAD OF MARY THE MOTHER' 239
' A little hand in the darkness
Was lifting the latch of my heart.'
And a splendid tribute is made to a forgiving,
an understanding Joseph :
' The heart of a woman is feeble,
But the strength of a man is strong ;
Wisest and best of mortals
Was Joseph of Nazareth.'
Following this is a description of the happy home
at Nazareth, and of the growth of the loving
Son in all the fine attributes of manhood and
sonhood. The intense passion of the Mother for
the Son is never lost sight of:
' The ways of the world are weary,
But the kiss of a mouth is sweet ! '
And in her pride of motherhood she cries to
Mary:
' A maid's love. O my daughter
Is a pearl that men may buy,
But the love of a new-made mother
Is a rainbow in the sky ! '
And in language that recalls the descriptions in
the Song of Solomon, she dwells on the beauty
and glamour of the child. Even in these early
days, however, he seemed not as other children
that play in the summer beam, but seemed to
live in a dreamland of his own :
' And while from hillock to hillock
They flew with laugh and cry,
He watch'd the white clouds passing
Over the still blue sky !
' So grave and yet so gentle,
So still and yet so blest,—
It seemed some fountain of wonder
Flow'd in his baby breast.'
240 ROBERT BUCHANAN
Yet there was always joy in the house, and
always a burning sunshine in the Mother's heart,
and as the days passed, the new joys and new
hopes drowned the possible fears.
' The peace of God was upon me,
The smile of God at my door, ,
My soul was a summer fountain
That fiUeth and fioweth o'er !
' Fairer and fairer my first-born grew
Till he was seven years old.
And his eyes had the g-lint o' the waters blue
And his hair the sunset's gold.'
His gentleness, his love for all things that God
made, especially his love for the weak things of the
world, the gentle, the sick, the God-stricken, the
poor, the lepers, is spoken of with motherly pride ;
and Jesus is also indicated here as a question-
ing young soul, ever eager to learn, and to hear
the tales that a thousand mothers tell to their sons,
of the bondage of the Jewish race, of the psalm of
the poet-king, of the wise men of old, and of the
promise of a Messiah.
' O sweet he was as the summer rain
That falleth on desert ways,
But ever the cry of human pain
Troubled his nights and days !
' And 'twas " O, mother," and "why, mother.
Are folks so weary and sad ?
The sick folk die, and the lepers cry,
Though the sun shines bright and glad ! " '
The arrival at the Holy City for the Feast, his
experiences in the Temple, and his gradual
growth in physical, moral, and mental strength
and beauty, the death of Joseph, his toiling in the
* BALLAD OF MARY THE MOTHER' 241
carpenter's shop of Galilee, his teaching in the
synagogue, are all recalled in tones of fond
remembrance by the Mother, till there comes on
the scene the figure of John the Baptist, and from
this point everything is changed. ' From morning
star unto evening star,' the eyes of John and Jesus
spoke, and into a desert place goes the Son, never
to return as before. There, alone with the silence,
he fasts and hides his face, until the * flesh of his
bones was wasted, and the light of his life burnt
low ' ; and when he came again to the Mother, * the
dews of Death were upon him, and his face seemed
set in a shroud,' and although his smile was loving
and gentle as of old, 'his eyes were gazing through
me at something far away.' The Son speaks to
the Mother of his revelation, and at his strange
words the Mother has fears of his physical con-
dition, telling him of God that
His face no eye hath looked on,
His voice no ear hath heard ;
And yet His face is the light o' life,
And His voice is a wing&d word.
Jesus refuses all sympathy and advice, and in the
familiar words renounces the world and all old
associations, and assumes (in the poem) the attri-
butes of Godhead. In simple yet telling lines, the
poet continues to put into the mouth of the Mother
her impression of the life of the Son in all its varied
and various forms ; of the message he gave to a
tired and aching world, and of his gleam of the
Promised Land.
Q
242 ROBERT BUCHANAN
' For his voice was sweet as a fountain
Or the voice of the turtle dove,
As he told of a Heavenly Kingdom
And the love that is more than love ;
' And the burden of earth was uplifted
By the touch of a magic hand,
And the folk beheld as they hearken'd
The gleam of the Promised Land :
' A land of milk and of honey,
Golden and bright and blest,
Where the wicked would cease from troubling
And the weary would be at rest ! '
With touching pathos she speaks of the Son's
message to the hungry, the weeping, the stricken ;
the message spoken in those words which, in
their personal element, have been the very founda-
tion of the power of Christ amongst those who
have fallen or barely succeeded in the struggle
for life : ' Come unto me ! '
But through it all the riddle of the Son's
language as to his relation with the Godhead
troubles and oppresses the Mother, who continu-
ally reminds the Son :
' Seed art thou of a mortal man,
And grew in thy mother's womb ' ;
and weeps that his thoughts are yonder in
heaven, and not here on the earth with her.
Mary, the dark-eyed maiden, rejoices in him,
whatsoever he does, and as he passes along midst
shouts of ' Rabbi,' and as she hears of the tales
of his healings and raisings from the dead, she
exclaims, * Surely this man, O mother, is more than
flesh of thine.' The Mother replies :
'BALLAD OF MARY THE MOTHER' 243
' Gladly my soul would greet him
Though he were thricefold King,
But ever behind him as he walks
The Shadow is following !
' Man is a spark in the darkness,
His days are only a breath,
The wings of the Lord are wide as the world
And the shadow thereof is Death ' ;
crying
' The ways of the world are many,
But yonder all ways meet ' ;
while the other Mary is continually echoing in
words her heart's yearning :
* There is never a man of the sons of men
Who is half so fair as he,—
Be he seed of a mortal or son of God,
He is Master of men and me.'
And then comes Golgotha :
As they parted his raiment among them,
For his vesture casting lots,
On the clouds of the night burnt brands of light
Like crimson leper-spots ;
But the storm of the night was over
And the wild winds ceased to cry.
Yea, all was still on the skull-shaped hill
As the Spirit of Death crept by.
'Twas Mary the woeful Mother
Lay prone beneath the Tree,
And Mary the Maid knelt down and prayed
With Mary of Bethany,
And the light came out of the skies
And struck the Cross on the hill . . .
And Jesus moaned and open'd his eyes.
And the heart of the world stood still !
and the reiteration of the splendour of human
love :
244 ROBERT BUCHANAN |
The love of the Lord of Heaven !
Is a dream that passeth by, i
But the love of a mortal Mother !
Is a love that doth not die !
The sword of the Lord of Heaven i
Husheth his children's cry,
But the love of a mortal Mother
Shines on, tho' God goes by ! '
i
And he bowed his head on his breast '
And utter'd a woeful cry,
And the weariful Mother's hps were prest ;
To his wounds, — while God went by !
The descent from the Cross, the embalmment,
the burial, and the sorrow of the women here
follow in their place : i
And the birth-star looked from the gates o' Death, ijj
As she rock'd the corse on her knee, 5j
And the Earth lay silently down to watch I'
In the still bright arms o' the Sea. ;
And from over the hill the stars looked down
With dim sad tearful eyes.
For the cry of the Mother's broken heart "■
Rang through the empty skies.
(It rang to the foot of the Throne of God J
Where all the wide world's woe, • 1
The dole of a million broken hearts, j
Melts like a fiake of snow) — ^
with the final despairing cry of a bereaved
Mother, bereaved because of the hopeless hope of |
her Son, that he could stand between man and his 1
Maker, and save the world from a humanly
conceived damnation : '.
s
' How shall the hand of a mortal |
Gather the sheaves of the Lord ? j
The hand of a man is ashes and dust, ^
God's hand is fire and a sword !
'BALLAD OF MARY THE MOTHER' 245
' How shall the seed of a woman
Master Euroclydon ?
A woman's seed is as thistlebloom,
And lo, with a breath 'tis gone !
' My son was fair as a lily,
His hair was of golden sheen,
But the lilies of Sharon perish
When the winds of the Lord blow keen !
• What man shall stand in the whirlwind
Where only the Lord may stand ?
The feet of the Lord are on the Dead,
And the Quick blow round like sand ! '
And then when all was over, the last rites, the
last despairing moan of godly motherhood; the
despair in the face of the unchangeable inexor-
ableness of Nature !
And over the hill the Dawn's bright feet
Plash'd in the Night's cold springs,
And a lark rose, shaking the drops o' pearl
From the tips of his dewy wings ;
And the heart of the world throbb'd deep and strong
As on Creation's Day,
And the skies that roof the happy earth
Were as blue and as far away !
This is a hasty view of a poem written with
more searching of heart, we conceive, than any-
thing the poet had yet ventured. The blessed
sanctity of motherhood, which has always stood
high in the creed of the poet, is made the theme
of the ballad, and the uselessness of the whole
aspiration, together with the human misery it
evoked, has touched the poet to speak these
words, despite all temptation to the contrary.
From a poetical point of view, 'The Ballad of Mary
246 ROBERT BUCHANAN
the Mother ' stands high, in our opinion, amongst
the poet's best work. For its very fearlessness
of expression, combined with its simplicity of
language, a simplicity which faithfully reflects the
spirit and tone of the Gospel, it remains an
important contribution to the poetical literature
of religion. There is none of the fiery rhetoric of
'The Wandering Jew,' little of the mysticism
of *The Book of Orm' and 'The City of Dream,'
or even of the ballad of the same metre, 'The
Ballad of Judas Iscariot ' ; but from its faithfulness
to Eastern colour, its remarkable poetic reproduc-
tion of the scriptural records, and its never-halting
metre, the poem must be regarded as part of the
vanguard of Mr. Buchanan's endeavour.
CHAPTER X
THE DEVIL
The Devil, as a subject for literature, has not
been made to assume very many distinctive
characters, and diabolism, that is to say, a belief in
a separate 'power' which works for evil, finding
its apotheosis in the personal Devil of Luther,
has in only a very few instances been a distinctive
element in the teachings and religious systems
of the world. Demonism, of course, flourishes
throughout all creeds, highly or lowly differen-
tiated, but of evidence of an individual power
which works for evil, in contradistinction to a
power which works for good, there is little.
There is no direct evidence that it existed in
Egyptian religious thought— the earliest attempts
at systems of belief of which we have records— nor
do we find it in Chinese Scriptures either prior to,
or contemporary with, Confucius. Jainism, the
religion of the Jains, or Hermits of India, has
no mention of it ; not until we come to the
Zoroastrian or Magdean Scriptures do we learn
of twin spirits Ahura Magda, the Spirit of Holi-
ness, and Daevas, the Originator of Impurities.
247
248 ROBERT BUCHANAN
Neither in the religion of the Opheans, nor in
Vedas and Vedantism, does a Devil occur ; and
as for the Greeks, their philosophy in regard
to a Devil has yet to be discovered, although
Empedocles looked upon Man as an outcast
of the gods, and thus, in a sense, suggested
the Miltonic Satan. Demokritos speaks of the
popular mythologies pointing to beings who may
influence human affairs malevolently ; but there is
no evidence to show a belief in a Devil, as, for
instance, it is found in the New Testament, and
in the various economies of the early and later
Christian Churches. The early Hebrew prophets
have no indication of a belief in a Devil ; the
Devil of Job is not the impersonator of evil, but a
servant of God sent to administer punishment.
The later books of the Jews which contain refer-
ences to a Devil are the Chronicles, and the Book
of Zechariah, and it is doubtful if the Devil of
the Chronicles is a distinct personality. As for
Zechariah, he no doubt lived at a time when the
religion of Judaism was being markedly influenced
by the Persian or Iranian Scriptures, from which
the Jews no doubt obtained their Daevas, and it
is interesting to note that the Judaical dictum,
that the spirits of good and of evil cannot both be
worshipped at the same time, is derived from the
Persians and Zoroastrians. It is only necessary
in this instance to add, that the Hebrew word
Satan means 'adversary,' and that this is the
interpretation to be put upon the word as it was
used by Jesus in the rebuke to Peter, and that the
THE DEVIL 249
diabolic interpretation put on the appearance of
the Serpent in the Garden of Eden is an outcome
of very late Judaical theology. Even when the
Jewish Devil becomes rampant, his powers are
very limited compared with those of the Daevas
of Zoroastrianism, who was associated with the
good spirit in the creation of man.
A definite Devil is not to be found in Taoism,
Buddhism, Mohammedanism, nor is it discovered
amongst the Pre-Aryan Indians, Boddos, Lipchas,
Arafinas, Polynesians, Arabians, Aztecs, nor in
the teachings of the Latins and the Druids. With
regard to the Latins, it will be interesting for
Mr. Buchanan to note that a Roman was re-
garded by the early Christians as a minor devil.
That is a title our poet would probably be proud
to possess.
Coming to modern literature, we have a variety
of Devils, most of them more or less modified
types of the Judaical conception, notable amongst
which are the Devil of Luther (an existing force,
not a literary creation), Milton's Satan, Goethe's
Mephistopheles, Marlowe's Dr. Faustus,Calderon's
Devil, Byron's Lucifer, and Robert Burns's Deil.
The Devil of Luther was the enemy of mankind
working in human affairs— as we have said, a real
existing belief, not a literary creation — a true
biographical phenomenon, illustrated by means of
his creator's personal experience. As Professor
Masson says, 'Whatever resistance he met with,
whatever obstacle to Divine Grace he found in
his own heart or in external circumstances, what-
250 ROBERT BUCHANAN
ever event he saw plainly cast in the way of the
progress of the Gospel, whatever outbreak of a
bad or unamiable spirit occurred in the Church,
whatever strange phenomenon of nature wore a
malevolent aspect— out of that he obtained a
clearer notion of the Devil.' It was a reflex of
the powerful belief of his age— what Comte called
the Theological Period. * History to Luther was
not a physical course of events, it was God act-
ing and the Devil opposing,' a position assumed,
but with entirely opposite sympathies, by Mr.
Buchanan in * The Devil's Case.'
The Satan of Milton was an archangel outcast
from the courts of Heaven ; one always conscious
of power and with a high notion of Deity, who
rebelled and was cast forth at the time when
intimation was made by the Almighty in the Con-
gregation of Angels that He had anointed His
only begotten Son King on the Hill of Zion.
With his ambition expressed in the well-known
comparison, ' better to reign in Hell than serve in
Heaven,' he waits on the threshold of Creation
to tempt humanity to fight against the decrees
of God.
Of this be sure,
To do aught good never will be our task,
But ever to do evil our sole delight.
As being the contrary to His high will
Whom we resist.
The Devil or Mephistopheles of Goethe is quite
a different person. 'The Satan of Milton is a
fallen archangel scheming his future existence.
Mephistopheles is the modern spirit of evil:
THE DEVIL 251
Satan has a sympathetic knowledge of good;
Mephistopheles knows only good as a pheno-
menon. Much of what Satan says might be
spoken by Raphael ; a devilish spirit runs through
all that Mephistopheles says. Satan's "bad
actions " are preceded by noble reasonings, Mephi-
stopheles does not reason; Satan's bad actions
are followed by compunctious visitings, Mephi-
stopheles never repents; Satan is often "inly
racked," Mephistopheles can feel nothing more
noble than disappointment; Satan conducts an
enterprise, Mephistopheles enjoys an occupation ;
Satan has strength of purpose, Mephistopheles is
volatile; Satan's greatness lies in the vastness
of his motives, Mephistopheles's in his intimate
acquaintance with everything; Satan has a few
sublime conceptions, Mephistopheles has accumu-
lated a mass of observations.' ^
The Devil of Marlowe, orthodox enough, is not
so distinctive a character, although he is Mr.
Buchanan's Devil's favourite pupil, ' painted a very
monster, corybantic, cloven-footed, insolent, and
goggle-eyed.' Calderon's Devil 'was only hideous-
ness divine,' while Byron's Lucifer approximated
to a Goethean Mephistopheles, with a dash of
Miltonic Satan ; and according to Mr. Buchanan's
Devil, he is as prosy as the fiend of Bailey. The
Deil of Robert Burns is the Devil of eighteenth-
century parochial Scotland, going about like a
roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour. He
was treated by the poet in a scornful, humorous
1 Masson.
252 ROBERT BUCHANAN
way, and was utilised to despatch excisemen and
others who, from experience, the poet knew
were running hot in the face of the Church.
The Devil of Mr. Robert Buchanan bears little
blood relation to any of these creatures. True, if
we were sophistical enough to use the words 'Good
and God ' as synonymous terms, we might assume
him to be only the Miltonic Satan in another make-
up. The Miltonic Satan fought against 'good,'
the Buchanan Devil is in revolt against ' God.'
Mr. Buchanan's Devil is an outcast from God
inasmuch as he dares to sympathise with the
fallen, and to raise his voice against the pitiless,
inexorable law which is the spirit of the All-
Father. His Devil has a sympathy only for light
and knowledge, and detests creeds, which tend to
close the eye and to bury Truth in nebulosity of
words. His occupation is to spread light where-
ever he goes, to call upon man to observe the
present, and not to stand star-gazing into the
future. There is in the modern creation much
of the sublimity of the Miltonic conception, much
of his noble reasoning, and much of his sympathy
with good and pity for God. There is also much
of the artfulness and knowledge of the world as
found in the Mephistopheles of Goethe, but he is
more tender, more loving, more pitiful, and has
this distinct difference, that he pleads his own
cause as the dispenser of the higher righteous-
ness, that righteousness which springs from a
knowledge of oneself and of one's environment,
the righteousness attained only by looking things
THE DEVIL 253
straight in the face as they exist, not by spying
at them through a veil of superstition, tradition,
and theological nebulae. The Devil of Buchanan
is the spirit of Revolt, the spirit of Eclecticism, the
spirit of Science as opposed to the spirit of Theo-
logy, the inspirer of research as opposed to the
upholder of authority and tradition. He joins
with Science in discovering that the law of Nature,
which, after all, is the law of God (and herein lies
his revolt against God), is the struggle for exist-
ence, and the survival of the fittest; he joins
with all true religions inasmuch as they act con-
trary to the great principle, and step in to help the
weak. He is the upholder of, and sympathiser
with, the weak as against the strong; he is in
sympathy with those who fall under the inexorable,
inexplicable, pitiless God of the Universe. His
sympathy is with all those who have sought a
sign, and who have given a helping hand to poor
humanity on the long dreary road to the grave;
to the religious leaders like Christ, and to his
starry-eyed brethren of the East — Zoroaster,
Buddha, Mahomet ; to searchers after Truth of the
stamp of Galileo and Magellan. This Devil claims
that in opposition to the Churches, which were
always opposed to everything that would ease the
aspiring energies of mankind, he is the fountain-
head of all the great economical methods, such as
Printing, the Theatre, and the modern Press,
economies which have led to the spread of Truth,
and to the increase of the joy of life.
His Devil is really God evolving, * evolving out
254 ROBERT BUCHANAN
of the inmost heart of human Love,' the spirit
of knowledge and sympathy, opposed to the
creeds which say * Knowledge is evil.' * Goethe's
Mephisto,' writes the poet, 'is as crude a con-
ception as even the Scotch " Deil "—mere intellect
without heart, whereas I hold that intellect im-
plies heart and true knowledge holiness. Goethe's
typical woman, e.g. Marguerite, is a fool; it is
because she is ignorant, not because she is good,
that she falls— whereas Goethe poses her as
the type of purity, and finally as the Eternal
Feminine. But it is pure ignorance that makes
her spellbound by the jewels, and leads her
to poison her mother and kill her child. "My"
Devil would have saved her, Goethe's monkey-
devil destroys her easily. Goethe, in fact, took
the vulgar view held by every parson. Hence
the vogue of his poem.'
We catch a glimpse of a Devil, 'Ades, King of
Hell,' in 'Undertones,' but a spirit of sorrow
appears for the first time in * The Book of Orm ' ;
whilst not until the publication of 'The Outcast,'
in 1891, was the idea conceived of a being in
actual stern revolt against God, one claiming to
be the Spirit of Pity. Following, in 1895, came
'The Devil's Case,' where JEon himself states
his own case in the sympathetic ear of the poet,
and makes his reappearance in ' The New Rome '
and in 'The Devil's Sabbath.'
Let it be said here that no one who cares at
all for the white-brained search for Truth need
approach these poems with any feeling but one
THE DEVIL 255
of confidence that the poet's steps are guarded
by the two highest virtues, human dignity and
reverence. However much custom, tradition,
yes, even logic, may be disturbed, there is
nothing in these poems that need hold back a
single soul in his effort to push on to the brink
of the Eternal Ocean. It may be that we may
have to travel far down the infernal stair, but it
is only to see the heirs of heaven arising there.
In a Preface to the second edition of 'The
Outcast,' the poet says: '"The Outcast" was
the first of what I may describe as my " Satanic
series," the most recent of which was "The
Devil's Case." I use the word "Satanic" to
express the spirit of moral and intellectual re-
volt, which is just as absolute in Vanderdecken
as in the greater Devil. The same unrest and
unhappiness, the same dissatisfaction with the
Divine plan, the same appeal to Nature against
God, emerge in both characters; Vanderdecken,
indeed, is the stormy child of the Spirit of Pity.'
First, then, let us take ' The Outcast,' described
as a rhyme for the time, and dealing afresh with
the old legend of Vanderdecken, who, having
defied God, is made an outcast on the seas for ever.
The poem opens with a monologue on some
of the more local aspects of the poet's world :
' A world without a God ! Heigho ! . . .
The good old God had merit, though !
Lc Bon Dieu, gravely interfering
In all Humanity's affairs,
Bowing His kind grey head and hearing
The orphan's moans, the widow's prayers,
256 ROBERT BUCHANAN
Was worth, or so it seems to me,
Whole cataracts of Tendency ;
There is no God, and all men know it
Except the preacher and the poet ;
Women are slaves and men are flunkeys,
The best but ^well-developed monkeys,
And Virtue is — a huswive's sampler.
Self-sacrifice — an usurer's chatter ;
Once Heaven was sure and Hope was ampler,
But now the Devil rules Mind and Matter !
Le Roi est mort — destroy'd and undone,
Or impotent and deaf and blind —
So vive le Roi of Hell and London,
Who waves a shroud for Humankind ! '
The poet proceeds to dwell on the new Philo-
sophic Pill, the worship and praise of the new God
* Man,' and laughs to scorn the idea of bending
the knee to the ' King Ape Humanity.'
This stomach-troubled, squirming, aching,
Mud-wallowing creature of a day.
This criticising, this book-making.
Fretful, dyspeptic thing of clay !
While expressing his admiration and love for
Man as an individual 'first of creatures 'neath
the sky,' human at the best, he detests Man as
an Abstraction, regarding as base the history of
Mankind. 'Not threefold heritage in Heaven
could purge his spirit of its leaven, or make the
Upright Beast divine.'
During his meditations Vanderdecken makes
his entrance, and is greeted with the acclamation,
'Who the devil are "you"?' which greeting
serves the visitor's purpose of dilating on the
various vicious Devils created by the poets, he
asserting that the only real Devil is he who
THE DEVIL 257
shares Humanity's affliction. The poet and the
Outcast exchange points of view, the former
occasionally bursting out in anger only to be re-
proved by the calm and cynical Outcast, who
invites the poet to pause in his 'belabouring of
critics and his cryings to God,' and to sit down
a space with him, comparing notes :
Come, though our strife is never ending,
We 've had our pleasure in the fight ?
Not fearing Hell or hoping Heaven,
We face the Elemental Flood ;
Far better to be tempest-driven
Than rot upon the harbour mud !
The poet speaks, dwelling on his own storm-
tossed life, telling how with fretful, feverish tread
he has paced the decks of life, and shed his sullen
curses on creation ; and moans that
The Creeds have withered one by one,—
Frost-bitten roses in the garden ;
There 's nothing left beneath the sun
But lives that pass and hearts that harden.
And then the Outcast pours forth his tale, re-
vealing his intimacy with the world, his know-
ledge of science and philosophy, * as intimate with
works unseemly as any Fellow of a college ' — being
a character callous but sad, sceptical but super-
stitious, ' apt in whatsoever was taking place from
here to Hades.'— In tranquil after-dinner air he
tells of his doom— how he had laughed at all the
gods, *and for this and for minor sins not un-
connected with Eve's daughters,' was driven in
his doomed ship upon the ocean. He tells in
what manner he roamed for years, and did his
R
258 ROBERT BUCHANAN
best to grasp what millions die believing, but only
found Folly and Death ; * Love, a fable long for-
gotten; and Lust, poison'd honey.' Trying all
creeds, all superstitions, customs, and conditions,
all gods that men and women revere, he got the
same answer everywhere— Death, Annihilation.
Looking into his face, the poet seems to see
his own soul's reflection :
A spirit poison'd through and through,
Yet hungering for the sun and dew ;
A nature warp'd and wild, yet fraught
With agonies of piteous thought ;
A soul predoom'd to Death and Hate,
Yet eager to be saved and shriven —
A life so wholly desolate
It seem'd fierce irony of Fate
To mock it with one glimpse of Heaven !
For one hundred years Vanderdecken has kept
a diary written in his own blood. This highly
seasoned collection of writings he hands to the
poet, with the remark that the Outcast was to find
his salvation in the discovery of one woman
prepared to give her soul that he she loved might
live. Man, he granted, would be saved and proved
immortal, could he thus be loved ; but woman is
capable of much, though never of wholly losing
for another all stake in human happiness for ever.
They '11 love, and even accept damnation.
So they but hold their man the surer,
But absolute obliteration
Of self for his soul's preservation.
Demands diviner powers and purer.
Admit one soul from Self set free,
You prove Man's Immortality.
THE DEVIL 259
He holds forth in language, tuned to a sad bitter-
ness, against the failure of Christ and all the
world's dreamers, who played for Heaven, and
failed to win it. He tells how he has gone further
into despair in reading the last Philosophers
than he was with the * Logos ' of St. John and
Christ's pure Huleh lily. He has read Comte and
Harriet Martineau ; studied Mill, and swallowed
Congreve's 'patent pill to purge man's liver of
Religion.' He has thumbed Frederic Harrison
and John Morley, turned to the 'teacup tem-
pests of Carlyle,' and been filled with wonder
* at divers dealers in cheap thunder ' ; read
'Daniel Deronda,' 'Leben Jesu,' and Renan's
'Vie'; vivisected with Lewes and Ferrier, and
kissed, allured by Tyndall's brogue, ' the scientific
blarney-stone,' and has talked with Bastian,
Huxley, and Darwin :
Then finally, in sheer despair,
Burn'd deep with Scepticism's caustic.
Found Spencer staring at the air,
Crying-, ' God knows if God is there ! '
And in a trice, became agnostic !
His agnosticism gives him 'entree' to England's
best society, and with the Archbishop and the
Cardinal he makes merry over the walnuts and
the wine :
Found them agnostic to a man.
But doing all good fellows can
To make their crank old Ship, the Church,
Still staggering on with many a lurch,
Take in her sails and trim her anchor
Before the Storm swept down and sank her.
Diabolically sneering at every system, foul or
26o ROBERT BUCHANAN
fair, he prattles on. Suddenly in the midst of his
talk there comes from the sea a cry for his return.
' Once more adrift, lost in gloom, as lonely as a
thunder-cloud, I fly, to face the blasts of doom !' and
with this last wail of despair, the Outcast vanishes.
Here follows, tuned to English tongue, 'The
Flights of Vanderdecken, sung by one whose
soul oft seems to share his doom of darkness and
despair.' 'Here, the Modern spirit holds the
Book of Doubt, the Writ of Reason. This is the
Modern who would, yet cannot, bend the knee.'
* How,' asks the poet, ' knowing all creeds, all
wicked lore that puzzles thought and palsies
feeling, shall he 'scape the apes of Darwin— how
in this tearful world, tomb-paven, shall he find
resting-place and haven ? '
How ? By the mag-ic which of old
Set yonder suns and planets spinning !
By that one warmth which ne'er grows cold,
By that one living Heart of g-old
Which throbs and throbb'd at Time's beginning !
By that which is, and still shall be,
In spite of all Philosophy !
From that we came, to that we go.
By that alone we live and are-
Core of the Rose whose petals blow
Beyond the farthest shining star !
Safe, despite Nature's cataclysm,
Sure, though the suns should cease to shine,
Love burns and flames through Thought's abysm,
Serene, mysterious, and divine !
One little word solves all creation,
Abides when Death and Time have passed —
Damn'd by the genius of Negation,
Man shall be saved by Love at last !
The first canto is entitled ' Madonna ' and con-
cerns itself with the Outcast's meeting with ' our
THE DEVIL 261
Lady of the Light, Mary Madonna, heavenly
eyed.'
'More than a hundred years have fled since
Philip Vanderdecken read Spinoza, and was
damned.' Having pondered in a dark amaze the
Demonstration Absolute which proves the Eternal
One must be divorced from Personality, having
pondered every cranny of the argument, he cries,
* Damn me for evermore, if any Personal God there
be,' and calls on the Spirit of Creation * to approve
himself by his damnation.' This occurred off Cape
Horn, on his vessel, a weather-beaten Dutchman
with a crew of squat, fat, night-capp'd, hairy dogs
of Dutchmen— 'gruesome and guttural as hogs,'
showing the trace of every sin that blurs the soul
and stains the skin— the 'mate,' once a Pro-
fessor of a college, having been brought to
destitution by wine and women, after holding the
chair of Moral Philosophy. A storm arises and
wraps the ship with fury, till
A thin pale Hand of fluttering gold
Stole through the clouds and silently
Touch'd the wild bosom of the sea.
Page after page is taken up with Vanderdecken's
musings and thoughts on Man, God, and Eternity,
variated by an interview with a vision of the
Madonna, who comes to offer him redemption.
One year out of every ten, he is told, he will be
suffered to leave his ship and wander amongst his
fellow-men, so that he may find some gentle shape
of womankind who shall love him and him alone,
one content to share his loneliness and despair,
262 ROBERT BUCHANAN
who shall from the fountain of her soul ' baptize
his brows and make him whole.'
Here follow records of the dangers and trials
through which the ship passes. Safely emerging
from these, it comes at last to the First Haven,
which is the 'mise en scene' of the second canto,
sub-titled ' Natura Naturans.' Each canto needing
a dedication, the poet runs over in his mind the
various poets amongst the moderns to whom he
might address his rhyme, and at last decides upon
Herman Melville, the author of 'Typee,' to which
book it is evident much of the contents of Canto
H. owe their inspiration. The canto tells of one
of the amours of Vanderdecken, and embodies a
picture of nature naturing, a picture full of
colour, and it must be said of fairly warm flesh
tints, painted of course by Vanderdecken, and
only reproduced by the poet :
A leaping-, eddying-, unabating
Revel of flesh and blood pulsating —
Now soft and sweet as fountains falling,
Now mad and wild as billows bounding,
Now murmurous as wood-doves calling.
Now corybantic and appalling,
And changeful as it was astounding !
We have not space to quote at any length from
the various pictures of nature, and indicate the
various moods which these suggest in the Outcast,
or dwell on the peace of soul and mind which this
love in the heart of loveland brings to the Wanderer.
Aloha, the maiden, is a sweet, unselfish dream of
passionate loveliness.
Of this canto we quote a passage which conveys
much of its character :
THE DEVIL 263 I
Lo ! while her ^ golden robe of day ]
Slips film by film arid falls away,
Naked and warm she stands a space, 1
The sun-flush fading from her face ;
Then, with bow'd head and soft hands prest {
Upon her bare and billowing breast, ^
Takes, while the chill Moon steals in sight, '
The cold ablution of the Night ! .
And then, as by the pools of rest )
She lieth down subdued and blest, 1
As on her closed eyes are shed
Dim influence from the heavens o'erhead, 1
Wc nestling in her bosom close
Our feverish eyelids and repose — I
Our spirits husht, our voices dumb, 1
Our little lives a little still'd, j
We sleep ! — and round us softly come ;
Souls from whose fountains ours are fill'd ! \
Spirits as soft as moonbeams flit i
Around our rest, not breaking it.
Brushing across our lips and eyes j
Wings wet with dews of Paradise ! i
While at God's mercy and at theirs ;
We lie, they bless us unawares,— !
Watch the Soul's pool that lies within ]
The branches dark of Flesh and Sin,
And stir it as with Aaron's rod '
To gleams of Heaven and dreams of God !
'1
Lifting the filmy tent of Sleep «i
With gentle fingers, on us peep |
Those errant angels, soft and tender J
With some strange starlight's dusky splendour ; '
With balm from Heaven they bedew us, |
Bring flowers from Heaven and hold them to us, I
Flash on our eyes the diamonds shaken
To fairy rainbows as we waken,
And jubilantly ere departing
Ring those wild echoes in our ears, j
Which, flusht and from our pillows starting,
We hearken for with childish tears ! '
We learn much of the tragedy of the Outcast's I
life ; how, by the death of mother and wife, he
learned to curse the cruelty of a pitiless God ; of I
1 The Earth. I
264 ROBERT BUCHANAN
his adventurous career, and more, in detail, of the ,
never-ending joy of this restful sojourn, naturing j
* with a simple maid who knew not sin.' \
But "tis the wooing and the winning, not the i
long end, but the beginning, that is the joy of \
love.' 'Ennui,' with his cold blind eyes, was i
soon facing the Outcast, and the old spirit of ;
unrest returns, and with it, his bitterness against
his God : i
We feel too much, we know too little, !
We gaze behind us and before ; I
The magic wand of Faith, grown brittle, i
Breaks in our grasp ; our Dream is o'er ! j
Our love and hate have aims, but thine
Are idle bolts at random hurl'd, j
Impotent, hidden, yet Divine, j
Brood o'er thy broken-hearted World ! i
Cold to the prayer of human sorrow.
Deaf to the sob of human strife, !
Thou workest grandly, night and morrow,
On Thy great Masterpiece of Life ! j
For Thine own pleasure is it done, <
Since Art's delight is in the doing.
Thine own enjoyment, slowly won.
Is the sole end Thou art pursuing.
And yet, when the sense of joys return, the note
is not entirely pessimistic : j
The dim white Dove of Death is winging j
O'er Life's great flood in lonely flight, ]
That sad black leaf of olive bringing j
To prove a hidden Land of Light ! !
God, who created Earth and Heaven,
Lord of the Dead thy love can save,
Thy Bow still comforts the bereaven
While Death wings on from wave to wave !
Standing 'neath Sorrow's sunless pall
We hail a symbol bright and blest,
And by that sign know one and all .
That when these troubled Waters fall
Our Ark on Ararat shall rest ! i
THE DEVIL 265
Then comes the tragic end of the child who
knew no thought of pain :
A blossom, born to bloom and kiss,
She open'd, then stole back again
To Nature's elemental bliss ;
and the recall of the Outcast to his ship.
This concludes the first wanderings of Van-
derdecken, the volume ending with a pathetic
personal Interlude spoken by the poet, still
optimist at heart, and, spite the dark and
troubled Present, seeing lights that stir the
clouds about, and still preserving his youth's
illusion :
I Believe in God and Heaven and Love,
And turning from Life's sorry sight,
Watch starry lattices above
Opening upon the waves of Night, —
Find shapes divine and ever fair
Thronging with radiant faces there,
V/hile hands of benediction wave
O'er these wild waters of the grave.
To this is appended the beautiful Fides Amantis,
from which we have had occasion to quote before.
It ends thus :
I do believe that our salvation
Lies in the little things of life.
Not in the pomp and acclamation
Of triumph, or in battle-strife.
Not on the thrones where men are crown'd,
Not in the race where chariots roll,
But in the arms that clasp us round
And hold us hackward from the goal !
In Love, not Pride ; in stooping low,
Not soaring blindly at the sun ;
In power to feel, not zeal to know ;
Not in rewards, but duties done.
266 ROBERT BUCHANAN
' Corollary : all gain is base,
The Victor's wreath, the Poet's crown,
If conquest in the giddy race
Means one poor struggler trampled down.
If he who gains the sunless throne
Of Fame, sits silent and alone.
Without Humanity to share
His happiness, or his despair !
' This Gospel I uphold, the one
The latter Adam comes to prove :
To every Soul beneath the sun
Wide open lies a Heaven of Love ;
But none, however free from sin.
However cloth'd in pomp and pride.
However fair, may enter in,
Without some Witness at his side,
To attest before the Judge and King
Vicarious love and suffering.
Who stands alone, shall surely fall !
Who folds the falling to his breast
Stands sure and firm in spite of all,
While angel-choirs proclaim him blest.'
Dearest and Best ! Soul of my Soul !
Life of my Life, kneel here with me !
Pray while the Storms around us roll,
That God may keep us frail, yet free !
Be Love our strength ! be God our goal !
Amen, et Benedicite !
The rest of the strange flights of Vanderdecken
have Still to be published, but we learn from
the title which precedes the first canto some-
thing of the scheme on which the 'rhyme' is
conceived. ' Gentle Reader, read herein English'd
and versified out of the Double Dutch, "The
Strange Flight of Philip Vanderdecken," called
"The Flying Dutchman," being a record of his
amours in all climes and countries, his experiences
of all complexions, his conversations with the
great Goethe and other persons of reputation.
THE DEVIL 267
some still living ; his curious and often improper
reflections on Men, Manners, and Morals, with a
full, true, and particular account of his various
religious opinions, the whole showing in a series
of startling episodes how, having been damned by
reading the philosophy of Spinoza, he was finally
saved by the Love of a Woman.'
AD LEG TO REM.
Herein lies a Mystern,
If you hut kneio it !
Peruse this strange Histortj —
You HI never sec thro' it.
Till Love learns your blunder
And'cc/mes to assist you:
When, smilinr/ and vxepiny.
With heart wildly leaping,
FoM 'II find, to your wonder,
God's Angels have kissed you !
Four years later * The Devil's Case ' was put into
literary shape by Mr. Buchanan, ' correctly stated,
and diligently versified as a Bank Holiday Inter-
lude,' with a warning on the very first page to the
reader that, ' tho' I try to state it clearly, 'tis the
Devil's Case, not mine ! ' The poem is written in
what the author calls * roguish, rhymeless stanzas
—a rakish, rhymeless poem— and not in great
heroic measures.' The perilous subject-matter,
a mingling of jest and earnest, is treated in a
manner 'jaunty, free, yet philosophic'
Sad it is, and yet its sadness,
Trembles on the verge of laughter !
It is the * Great Original ' that is here presented,
not 'small inferior Devils, feeble, foolish mas-
268 ROBERT BUCHANAN
queraders, outlaw'd by the cliques of Heaven, who
for ever roll the Log and praise the Lord.' The
evident sympathy between the interviewer and the
interviewed is thus expressed :
Both began with warm approval
Of the Church and ruling- classes.
/ was praised by the Spectator,
He was orthodox and holy !
Both have wholly fallen, yet still keep, as their
proud possession, the power to stand erect :
Power to feel, and strength to suffer,
Will to fight for Freedom only,
Zeal to speak the truth within us,
While the slaves of Heaven are dumb.
With a fear that the crowd may deem his interview
blasphemous, he declares :
He alone blasphemes who smothers
Truth his conscience bids him utter ;
and recalls the fact that he, Buchanan, spite
of all his slips, has ever loathed the foul
materialistic Serpent that surrounds the world. . . .
From his earliest hours he was gazing at the
stars.
I was wondering, I was dreaming.
Speculating and aspiring, —
Reaching hands and feeling backward
To the secret founts of Being.
All the gods were welcome to me !
All the heavens were wide and open !
All the dreams of all the Dreamers
In my heart's blood were pulsating !
Beautiful it was to wander
In a glad green world, beholding
Faith's celestial Jacob's Ladder
Rainbow'd out 'tween Earth and Heaven.
THE DEVIL 269
And upon its shining Angels,
Some descending, some ascending.
Golden hair'd, with rosy faces
Smiling on me as I walk'd.
Well those happy days were over.
With the roses of the Maytime—
One by one my youth's illusions
Had been spirited away.
It is at Hampstead that the poet first meets
the Devil. As he passes over the Heath, woe-
ful shadows of departed men and women he
had known when young seem to pass before
him, none looking at him, but all seeming in a
dark dream, lost in contemplation ; some smiling,
some weeping ; the white-haired Father among
them, the Madonna-like Mother, David Gray,
'bright-eyed, like the star of morning,' Roden
Noel, and others, whose presence on the scene
testifies again to the steadfast faithfulness of the
poet, on which we have already had occasion to
dwell. None of these shapes give him a sign, as
he stands there with a void and aching heart,
while
Far above, the lamps of Heaven
Flicker'd in the breath of God.
Under the moon, 'that Naked Goddess,' he meets
the Devil reading the latest (pink) edition of ' The
Star,' 'clerically dress'd, bareheaded, spectacled.'
To expressed surprise at his facility of sight, the
i^,on replies :
' Yes,' he said, benignly nodding,
' I am blessed with goodly eyesight.
Owing chiefly, like most blessings,
To a strictly moral life.
270 ROBERT BUCHANAN
He is absorbed in the human pageants that flit
across the paper, the tales of war and slaughter,
the records of the Bench and the Church, the
camera of the Anarchy of Life, as well as the
administration of all life's beauty, all life's wonder,
and the solemn issues and glorious deeds that go
with mighty causes. He knows that Progress,
Culture, Church and State, Queen and Country,
Party Rule, still are potent in the land.
' Shibboleths like these are precious
Ev'n though one devours another,
Thoug-h the shibboleth of white men
Wrecks the shibboleth of black !
' Yet (you warn me) still the Dreamers
Speak of God and point to Heaven !
Still the spire, like Faith's bright finger,
Points to some far Paradise ! '
He reads aloud of shipwrecks, earthquakes,
devastations, floods, cholera epidemics, railway
accidents, and asks the poet to look on Nature,
and hear the wailing of a million martyred beings,
and tell him if the God he prays to 'cares one
straw for human life.' The poet replies :
This they prove, and this thing only :
Human life as we behold it,
Is as nothing in the vision
Of a larger Thought than ours ;
and declares that nothing can die ; and agreeing
with him, the Devil adds that though life is eternal,
all things personal must pass, and asks the poet
to look at men, chasing the bubbles of pleasure,
honour, reputation, gold, and women, and say if
they are worthy of eternity.
God knows better— in Death's furnace
Melts the dross for other uses.
THE DEVIL 271
' God ? ' he cried. ' If such a Ruler,
Wise, Omnipotent, All-seeing,
Had concerned Himself in making
Worlds at all, and living creatures,
' He 'd have made them wholly perfect.
With no fuss of evolution . . . ;
If there is a God, He blundered,—
Man is here to set Him right ! '
The poet is horrified, having up to this time re-
garded the speaker as a clergyman or priest,
and in wrathful tones declares that God * is ' and
works in His own fashion, and that ephemerae
'fluttering for a breath, then fading, could not
fathom the eternal glory of the God of all.'
In eloquent terms the Devil speaks of the free
scattering of damnation on two-thirds of living
things, and of the bloody chapters which history
and the newspapers make in the world's volume ;
of how city has followed city * down the crater of
damnation'; of how for a space some fair type
emerges, is approved of, and then crushed.
Greece, Rome, Egypt, thus have perish'd
Yet the fires of Hell burn on.
Wroth at his blaspheming, the poet declares
there is no Hell, save only conscience working
deep within us, warning us against sin and evil ;
the Devil answering :
' Sin is God's invention ;
Often have I doubted Heaven,
Never have I doubted Hell.
Look around. Hell is, of all things
Made by God, the one thing certain.'
He then proceeds to plead his case in detail.
272 ROBERT BUCHANAN 1
complaining that he has been sadly traduced by )
the priests, prophets, and even the poets, and i
adding that he is the kindest-hearted creature
in this Universe of Sorrow, and that his affection
for mortals is the cause of all his woes.
' I 've a case which, rightly stated,
Must procure me an acquittal : '
Yes, the case for the Defendant
Will astonish God Himself ! ^
' God 's my Judge, and cannot therefore
As a witness speak against me ; 1
God the Judge must be — the Jury ]
Men of science and discretion. j
\
' When they call the roll, you '11 challenge i
All the slaves of superstition,— '
Fashionable priests and poets, ^
And all miUtary men ; I
' Thieves and pubhshers and critics t
Shall be warn'd from off the jury, — ]
Ev'n philosophers and pundits j.
Must be keenly scrutinised. ?
' PoUticians, Whig and Tory, I
Jewish, Christian, and Agnostic, J
Must be challenged — they are liars J
Both by practice and profession. *'■
' Lastly, challenge all the prying i
Members of the County Council —
Prurient things of all three sexes, j
Loathing Liberty and Light.' J
The Devil speaks in tender, loving terms of the
Christ, the well-beloved Son of Sorrow, holy,
loving, great, and gracious, and like to him, an
* Outcast.' ;
' All thy goodly Dream is over,
He who rules"thy realm, my Jesus,
Never wore thy crown of thorns.
i
i
THE DEVIL 273
' Not of thee, but of that other
Who usurps thine Earthly kingdom,
Spake I ; not of thee, my Jesus,
But of him they name the Christ.'
He takes the poet to the silent city, to show
him his kingdom. * Wheresoever human creatures
wail in anguish, is my kingdom ! ' And as he
gazes on dead and dying, on the hollow eyes of
famine, on the insane, on murder and disease,
* his features misted were with tears of pity fall-
ing from his woeful eyes,' while in piteous tones
he charges God with creating Hell, and setting
alight the fires of Pestilence, Disease, and Famine,
adding :
' Thus, in spite of the Almighty,
I have leaven'd its afflictions.
Teaching men the laws of Nature, —
Wisdom, Love, and Self-control.
' Every year the Hell-fires lessen,
Every day the load is lighten'd,
'Neath my care the very devils
Grow benign and civilised ! '
declaring that the pedant who avers that man's
affliction came from eating the forbidden fruit
was the Prince of liars, and that whosoever has
eaten it *has known his birthright and is free.'
He tells of his practical efforts to improve the
world's affairs, he being the father of science,
most renowned in all the arts, and hygiene his
youngest born.
' '* Take no heed about To-morrow,"
Said the man-God, " do no labour.
Be content with endless praying
And eternal laissez-faire."
S
274 ROBERT BUCHANAN
' But the Devil, being wiser,
Knows that he who fails to reckon
With the morrow, will discover
That To-morrow is To-day !
' And To-day is, now and ever,
All Eternity or nothing —
He who sits and twiddles fingers
Nov:, hath done it evermore ! . . .'
The Devil gives the poet a view of the world in
its various actions, passes him over palaces and
prisons, hospitals and brothels, over waters black
with tempest, over battlefields, over famine-
stricken countries, over cities foul with plague,
over the plains and mines of Siberia :
Everywhere the strong man triumphed !
Everywhere the weak lay smitten !
Everywhere the gifts of Godhead
Rain'd on over-laden hands !
Returning to the Heath, the Devil continues the
story of his career, telling how in other days he
had stood at the elbow of the Father, and had sung
His praises until the evil hour when he wandered
from His side to view Creation, and how at first
His praise grew louder until he beheld His angels
'watching for His lifted finger creating and
destroying.' Then his soul became wroth within
him against all the needless suffering and pain
of the world, and he cried forth his anger to his
God. Cast forth into the abysses, and landing
on the Earth, he opened his career by tempting
the Woman :
' Then I said (may Man forgive me !)
Better far to know and suffer.
Reach the stature of us angels,
Than be happy like the beasts ;
THE DEVIL 275
and declaring that he knew better than beHeve
that ' Death was brought into the world out of sin
and sorrow through that fruit forbidden,' know-
ing that Death was born in the beginning by the
will of God the Father.
He speaks in sneering terms of the long pro-
cesses of Evolution, *now selecting' now rejecting,
harking back and retrogressing,' and of how 'the
Archetype was fashioned by perpetual vivisec-
tion, his passage to the Human being marked by
swarms of martyr'd creatures.' Meanwhile, whilst
the Nations were shadowed with the pestilential
darkness of Death, and priests rose and made
sacrificial offerings to God, the Devil was busy
teaching mankind the useful arts :
' How to till the soil, to fashion
Roofs of stone against the tempest,
How to weave the wool for raiment,
Yoke the monsters of the field ;
' Fire I brought them, — teaching also
How to tame it to their uses,—
Turning ironstone to iron,
Frame the ploughshare and the sword ;
' Help'd by me they drain'd the marshes,
Lopp'd the forest trees, and fashion'd
Ships that floating on the waters
Gather'd harvest from the Deep.'
Wherever superstition darkened Heaven and
Earth he went, east and west— to Zoroaster,
Buddha, Chiddi, speaking to them of light. Still
people toiled, suffered, and died; still the priests
raved aloud and waited for wonders ; everywhere
the senses of the people were blinded by signs
276 ROBERT BUCHANAN
and miracles, whilst the Devil went on with his
scholastic task of teaching the world hieroglyphics,
architecture, the measurement of earth and water,
and astronomy. He speaks of the fall of Paganism
and the decay of Hellas under the sway of the
Priests of God and Death :
' Vain was all my strife for mortals !
Vainly wrought my servant-angels !
Vainly toil'd Asclepios, vainly
Helen smiled, and Sappho sang !
' As a rainbow dies from Heaven,
As a snow-white cloud of summer
Breaks and fades, the pride of Hellas
Brighten'd, melted, passed away ! '
Through the dark streams of Roman history we are
piloted, with the Devil putting his case as against
the All-Father; coming betimes to the shores of
Galilee, where he found the 'king of poets and
of dreamers,' to whom in the desert he points out
his delusion. He tells how he was met with the
reply, -ctrava, oTTto-co /j-ov ; and then in glowing rage
he declares that the promises He fathered have
turned into dust, and yet live and multiply as lies,
while he, the Devil, has gone on preaching his
doctrines of enlightenment :
' " Pass from knowledge on to knowledge
Ever higher and supremer.
Clothe these bones with power and pity.
Live and love, altho' ye die !
' " Fear not, love not, and revere not
What transcends your understanding !
Keep your reverence and affection
For the brethren whom ye know ! " '
Meanwhile he is busy with his first great attack
THE DEVIL 277
on the Church and darkness, the invention of
printing, persuading first a learned monk to tran-
scribe his carnal books, and then, fashioning tiny
blocks of wood, ranged them patiently in order,
'smeared them o'er with ink from Hades, stamped
the words on leaves papyric,' and so the miracle
was done.
' First I printed (mark my cunning !)
God's own Book, the Christian Bible,
Turn'd it out in fine black letter,
So that he who ran might read !
' Thus, observe, I pinn'd the churchmen
Down to very verse and chapter !
Thus, Sir, for the good times coming,
I was nailing Lie on Lie ! '
Then suddenly arose man's new tree of good and
evil, and light and liberty were born ! Larger and
larger it grew despite the shrieks of the Popes
and Churchmen. *Lop it! cut it down! destroy
it! Shun that leafage diabolic. Ware that
wicked fruit of knowledge,' croaked the raven of
the Churches. But the whole world became full
of the joy of the new blessing. The magic runes
of Norseland, the Tales of Troy, Shepherd's songs
of yore, became the common gift of mankind, and
Fairyland seemed once more ; even the monks in
the monastery garden 'slyly sow'd the seedlings
of the tree.'
And since that day the fight between Church
and Devil has lasted.
' I it was who put the honey
On the tongue of Ariosto !
I who cast a hght from Heaven
On Boccaccio's golden page !
278 ROBERT BUCHANAN
' In the ear of many a monarch
I was whispering my reasons —
Taught by me, your bluff King Harry
Faced the Pope and flay'd the cowls ! '
Proceeding, the Devil tells of his second great
'coup,' the upraising of the 'Drama,' 'still by
priestcraft shunn'd and curst'; at first bribing
monks to help him by the production of miracle
plays. Then arose the Devil's temple, 'The
Theatre,' sunny as the soul of Nature, fearless,
beautiful, and free :
' " Shun it ! shun the Devil's dwelling ! "
Shriek'd the jealous cowls ; but straightway,
Loud, the prelude of the battle,
Thunder'd Marlowe's mighty line !
' There I taught your gentle Shakespeare
What no shaven monk could teach him—
Mingled wit and wisdom, foreign
To a God who never smiles !
' Churchmen curst, and still are cursing
What transcends their sermonising.
Hating, in the way of traders,
Rival shops with smarter wares.'
In his Temple rose the voices of the Seers and
Merry-makers, Song-makers and Romancers.
Following came another ' coup,' the invocation of
the Story-tellers— Cervantes, Fielding, Sterne,
Dickens, Charles Reade— all of whom 'struck
the rock of human knowledge, and freed the
founts of fun, still foreign to a God who never
laughs.'
In rapid succession the Devil gives us pictures
of Voltaire, the darling son of his adoption,
Condorcet, Diderot, day by day waging the war of
THE DEVIL 279
the Devil of Light against the God of Popes and
Bibles; and in passing we are given an indica-
tion of the horrors of the French Revolution :
' Midst that carnage all the cruel
Parasites of God were busy, —
IGNORANCE, his page-in-waitingf,
DEATH, his master of the hounds ! '
the Devil proclaiming loud throughout the world
that Salvation abides in ourselves and not in
God.
Then the Devil takes upon him the invention of
the Newspaper :
' 'Gainst the Church's red battalions
Rose at last the thin black line !
Noug-ht that Priests and Tyrants plotted,
Nought that mortals did or suffer'd,
Nought that passes on this planet,
Any more remained in darkness ! '
*0n the walls of hut and palace flamed thy
messages to mortals, all the affairs of Hell and
Heaven being recorded, even to the doings in the
Vatican ' :
' For the first time human creatures
Knew the affliction of their fellows —
Tyrants blush'd to find recorded
Deeds they had not blush'd to do !
' Nought that God had done in darkness
Could escape his circumspection !
All the evils God created
Now were patent to the world ! '
and this boast arouses a vigorous protest from the
poet as to the prying and denying which makes
nothing sacred to eyes profane; to which the
28o ROBERT BUCHANAN
Devil replies that in a scheme so democratic,
individual merit fails, and that with all its limita-
tions the Press is a boon to mankind :
' By the printed words, the record
Of the conscience of the people,
By my clamouring Printer's Devil,
Freedom spreads from land to land :
' Deeds of night no more are hidden,
Deeds of grace are multiplying ;
Light into the dungeon flowing
Strikes the fetters of the slave.
' At my printed protestation
On his throne the Tyrant trembles :
Words of hope, for Freedom utter'd,
Shake the footstool of the Czar ! '
From this point the Devil gives us picturesque
records of his work in unfolding to man all the
story of Creation, Birth, Death, and Evolution ; of
his revelation of the arts and sciences by God
forbidden, not forgetting the rise and growth of
medicine and surgery, and the general opening
of the eyes of Man to the sense of his own dignity,
and of the cruelty and tyranny of God the Father
as personified in Nature and its Evolution. * What
avails,' he cries, ' a bliss created out of hecatombs
of evil, out of endless years of pain? Thus,' he
says, 'throughout the ages o'er the world my
feet have wandered, watching in eternal pity
endless harvest-fields of Death ' :
' All the tears of all the martyrs
Fall'n in vain for Man's redemption !
All the souls of all the singers
Dumb for ever in the grave !
THE DEVIL 281
' Ants upon an ant-heap, insects
Of the crumbling- cells of coral, ]
Coming ever, ever going,
Race on race has lived and died.' I
He declares that God has been deaf to all the
wails and the weeping, blind to all the woes of '
being, and that neither praise nor prayer nor i
lamentation availeth before the blind, pitiless,
sure. Eternal Law :
' Waste no thought on the Almighty ; i
Seek, with all thy soul's endeavour,
How to make thine earthly dwelling-
Bright and fair, in God's despite !
' Only for a day thou livest !
Make that day, so quickly fleeting,
For thyself, for all thou lovest,
Beautiful with Light and Joy ! ' j
And as he vanishes, asking not to be called the
Prince of Evil, but the Prince of Pity, since he j
alone has wept for human woes, and worked for j
human amelioration, the poet ends : 1
Tell the truth and shame the Devil ! j
Tell it, even tho' it praise him !
Tell the truth for the Defendant, j
Tho' the Accuser be thy God ! ]
Better still— let the Defendant |
Plead his Case in his own person : (
Tho' it means thine own damnation
Let the awful truth prevail ! . . .
Yet, alas ! that happy Eden ! j
All the golden, gladsome Garden ! j
God the Father smiling on us.
Raining gentle blessings down !
The volume ends with a Litany, ' De Profundis,'
in which prayers are offered up for light and |
happiness, and deliverance from Wars, Murders, ']
282 ROBERT BUCHANAN
and Deaths, from Liars and those who would
deaden Truth. The following is a sample of the
invocations :
Father, which art in Heaven, not here below !
Be Thy Name hallowed, in that place of worth !
And till Thy Kingdom cometh, and we know.
Be Thy will done more tenderly on earth !
Since we must live, give us our daily bread !
Forgive our stumblings, since Thou mad'st us blind !
If we offend Thee, Lord, at least forgive
As tenderly as we forgive our kind.
Spare us temptation, human or divine !
Deliver us from evil, now and then !
The Kingdom, Power, and Glory all are Thine
For ever and for evermore. Amen.
Mr. Buchanan introduces us again to his Prince
of Pity, his JEon, his Devil, in 'The New Rome,'
which is an attempt at a satire on the times.
This originated in a suggestion of Mr. Herbert
Spencer's, who had written thus to the poet:
* There is an immensity of matter calling for
strong denunciation and display of white-hot
anger, and I think you are well capable of dealing
with it. More especially, I want some one who
has the ability, with sufficient intensity of feeling,
to denounce the miserable hypocrisy of our
religious world, with its pretended observances of
Christian principles, side by side with the abomi-
nations which it habitually assists and coun-
tenances. In our political life, too, there are
multitudinous things which invite the severest
castigation — the morals of party strife, and the
ways in which men are, with utter insincerity,
sacrificing their convictions for the sake of
political and social position.' * Urged by this great
THE DEVIL 283
authority,' writes the poet, * I did attempt to write
a satire, but I soon found that I lacked the
necessary equipment, and was drifting into mere
imitation of defunct masters. Moreover, I was
only pretending to be in a passion. In point
of fact, I had no "hate" in me; I was too dis-
heartened and sad, and too sorry for poor
Humanity. The longer I lived, too, the more
clearly I saw the hopelessness of mere denuncia-
tion. Rating priests and politicians for their
inadequacy was simply repeating one of the very
few blunders made by the gentlest and most
benign of philanthropists. It was cursing the
Barren Fig Tree.'
Beside the experience of the Devil in ' The New
Rome,' he reappears to our observation in *The
Devil's Sabbath ' in the same volume, which has
for an ending the following epode :
This is the Song the glad stars sung when first the Dream began,
This is the Dream the world first knew when God created Man,
This is the Voice of Man and God, blent (even as mine and thine !)
Where'er the soul of the Silence wakes to the Love which is
Divine !
How should the Dream depart and die, since the Life is but its
beam?
How should the Music fade away, since the Music -is the Dream?
How should the Heavens forget their faith, and the Earth forget its
prayer,
When the Heavens have plighted troth to Earth, and the Love
Divine is there ?
The Song we sing is the Starry Song that rings for an endless
Day,
The endless Day is the Light that dwells on the Love that passeth
away,
The Love that ever passeth away is the Love (like thine and
mine !)
That evermore abideth on in the heart of the Love Divine !
CHAPTER XI
'THE NEW ROME'
The volume which bears the title of 'The New
Rome' embodies in a remarkable way the poet's
views on most of the questions that have con-
cerned him in his outlook on life and in his pro-
gnostications of death and eternity. With a writer
whose mental and spiritual history has been one
of steady evolution, the last word is merely a more
highly developed, a more keenly tempered first
word, and the final outlook, though taken from
a higher pinnacle than that from which the first
glimpse is taken, yet embraces, with an altered
perspective, the earlier view. This metaphor, of
course, is only correct in so far as we bear in
mind the changes made by thought and environ-
ment on the seeing eye and the reflecting soul.
* I end as I began ' is the confession of the poet
— not in method of thought, nor in method of
expression, but in tendency and in belief.— What
was first vague, wrapt in a cloud of doubt and
hesitation, became definite and clear. The veil
has been gradually thinned, though never lifted,
and the face within, at least, may be known to
284
'THE NEW ROME' 285
be there. Little by little the nebulosity weaved
by what we call conscience (which often is merely
a mental habit, attained by custom) round the
sight and the ideas, with the expression of
them, was spirited away by the eclecticism of
the poet ; one by one the barnacles which clung
to his ship of thought were cleared away, and,
however far from the mark the poet is in dis-
cerning the secret of Nature and the secret of
creation and of life, the note is always honest,
direct, and uncompromising.
When first I learnt to know
The common strife of all,
My boy's heart shared the woe
Of those who fail and fall ;
For all the weak and poor
My tears of pity ran,
And still they flow, e'en more
Than when my life began.
The creeds I 've cast away
Like husks of garner'd grain,
And of them all this day
Does never a creed remain
Save this, blind faith that God
Evolves thro' martyr'd Man :
Thus, the long journey trod,
I end as I began !
I dream'd when I began
I was not born to die.
And in my dreams I ran
From shining sky to sky ;
And still, now life grows cold
And I am grey and wan,
That infant's Dream I hold.
And end as I began !
The volume before us is truly a confession of
286 ROBERT BUCHANAN
Faith, and in many ways the best epitome of the
poet's passions, feeHngs, and powers that he has
given to the world. The old sympathy for the
weak and oppressed, the hatred of wars, the hatred
of lust, the joy in mere living, the godhead of per-
sonal manhood, the hatred of shams, the hatred
of intellectual trimming, the scorn of priests and
pedants, the cry against a pitiless God-Father,
and the heart-breaking sympathy for the sleepless
Dreamer of Dreams, all are evidenced here.
He ends as he began in more ways than one.
His first volume was dedicated to David Gray.
The dedication to * The New Rome ' is * To David
in Heaven,' thirty years after :
Lone and weary-hearted
I think of days departed,
The shining hope, the golden lure, that led our footsteps on !
That led me even hither
To Night and isolation,
That crowns me with a weary crown of a sunless aspiration !
All I plead and pray for
Is one gUmpse of Maytime, —
The light of Morning on the fields of the fiower-time and the play-
time !
Better cease as iiou did !
Star-eyed, divinely-mooded.
Hoping, dreaming, passioning, fronting the fiery East!
Better die in gladness.
Than watch in utter sadness
The lights of Heaven put slowly out, like candles at a feast !
You emerge victorious.
We remain bereaven :
Better to die than live the heirs of an empty Earth and Heaven !
Ah, the dream, the fancy !
No power, no necromancy.
Peoples Heaven's thrones again or stirs the poet-throng !
*THE NEW ROME' 287
Nought can bring unto me
You who loved and knew me,
The boy's belief, the morning-red, the Ma3rtime and the
Song—
Faintly up above me
Winter bells ring warning —
Ay me ! the Spring, when we were young, at the golden gates of
Morning !
But the final note of the poet is not one entirely of
despair. He cannot cry that * God 's in His heaven,
all 's right with the world'; but he knows that there
is still *the glad deep music of creation abiding,
though men depart,' and that though the stern-
ness of God is inexorable, the love of a mother is
tender and eternal. His belief in mankind is as
firm as ever :
In this dark world
What moves my wonder most is, not that Man
Is so accurst and warp'd from heavenly love,
But that, despite the pitfalls round his feet,
He falls into so few,— despite the hate
And anarchy of Nature, echoed on
In his own heartbeats, he can love so much !
He stumbles, being blind ; he eateth dust,
Being fashion'd out of dust ; flesh, he pursues
The instincts of the flesh ; but evermore
He, struggling upward from the slough of shame,
Confronts the Power which made him miserable
And stands erect in love, a living Soul !
Out of the chaos of Night — which is really
the despair which arises from the embracing
of the letter and not the spirit of the law —
'suns shall rise though many a sun hath set,'
and the last word that God can speak to an
anxious world will be * Love ' — the solving word
of all creation, without which the orient beams
288 ROBERT BUCHANAN
of light will freeze the soul on the brink of
eternity.
The volume is divided into various parts, of
which 'Songs of Empire' is the first. With
notable fearlessness as of old, the poet faces
the current and swims against the stream of
popular tendencies with regard to Empire. At
the very moment when the spirit of Imperialism
tops the highest wave of the sea of contemporary
political thought, he boldly asserts his political
eclecticism, and suspects some of our aspirations
and methods. This is not an uncommon position
for a poet to assume, although as a rule there
is an evident silence which is termed poetical
reticence, but which by some is not designated
by such a charitable title. Whilst the poet of
the Empire sings of rampant Imperialism and the
virtue of strength, and is the singer of the hour,
Mr. Buchanan recalls ancient theories of liberty,
and sings the Song of the Slain.
The first song is characteristic enough, and
indicates the regardless, sweeping step that
strength takes in the economy of the world — in
other words, *The Lord Marching on ' :
Awake, awake, ye Nations, now the Lord of Hosts goes by !
Sing ye His praise, O happy souls, who smile beneath the sky !
Join in the song, O martyr'd ones, where'er ye droop and die !
The Lord goes marching on !
'Mid tramp and clangour of the winds, and clash of clouds that meet,
He passeth on His way and treads the Lost beneath His feet ;
His legions are the winged Storms that follow fast and fleet
Their Master marching on !
And in a later effort the poet contrasts the stern
'THE NEW ROME' 289
omnipotence, that shows no mercy, of God the
Father, with the human tenderness and pity that
are the hallmarks of human endeavour :
If I were a God like you, and you were a man like me,
And in the dark you prayed and wept and I could hear and see,
The sorrow of your broken heart would darken all my day,
And never peace or pride were mine till it was smiled away, —
I 'd clear my Heaven above your head till all was bright and blue,
If you were a man like me, and I were a God like you !
If I were a God like you, and you were a man like me.
Small need for those my might had made to bend the suppliant knee ;
I 'd light no lamp in yonder Heaven to fade and disappear,
I 'd break no promise to the Soul, yet keep it to the ear !
High as my heart I 'd lift my child till all his dreams came true.
If you were a man like me, and I were a God like you !
He then bemoans the fall of the glory of the
Modern Rome, ' Where is the glory that once was
Rome, where are the laurels the Caesar wore?'
and he sees in the modern forum the Christ who
is the God of to-day, not Baal, but Christus-Jingo.
His Song of Jubilee is written, not to the tune
of patriotic jubilation in all that we glory in, but
in a minor key of despair in the growth of the
worst aspects of Imperialism and Stock-Exchange
commerce, which seems to raise the hope of the
nation, yet oppresses the soul of the poet.
' The thin red line was doubtless fine as it crept across the plain.
While the thick fire ran from the black Redan and broke it again
and again.
But the hearts of men throbb'd bravely then, and their souls could
do and dare,
'Mid the thick of the fight, in my despite, God found out Heroes
there !
The Flag of England waved on high, and the thin red line crept on.
And I felt, as it flashed along to die, my occupation gone !
O'er a brave man's soul I had no control in those old days,' said he,
' So I 've turned myself, ere laid on the shelf, to a Charter'd
Companie !
T
290 ROBERT BUCHANAN
' The Flag of England still doth blow and flings the sunlight back,
But the line that creepeth now below is changed to a line of black !
Wherever the Flag of England blows, down go all other flags.
Wherever the line of black print goes, the British Bulldog brags !
The New^spaper, my dear, is best to further such work as mine, —
My blessing rest, north, south, east, west, on the thin black penny-
a-line !
For my work is done 'neath moon or sun, by men and not by me,
Now I 've changed myself, in the reign of the Guelph, to aCharter'd
Companie !
' The Flag of England may rot and fall, both Church and State may
end,
Whatever befall, I laugh at it all, if I pay a dividend ! '
This is not Mr. Buchanan's own 'Devil' who sings
the song, but Belial, a very different person, with
whom the poet is not even on bowing terms. The
same distaste of the commercial spirit in war is
found in that subtle piece of humour, *The
Ballad of Kiplingson,' whose very title suggests
the metre and spirit of the rhyme. The follow-
ing quotation will give some idea of the character
of this parody :
' For the Lord my God was a Cockney Gawd, whose voice was a
savage yell,
A fust-rate Gawd who dropt, d'ye see, the ' h' in Heaven and Hell !
' Alas, and alas,' the good Saint said, a tear in his eye serene,
' A Tory at twenty-one ! Good God ! At fifty what u-oidcl you have
been?
* There 's not a spirit now here in Heaven who wouldn't at twenty-one
Have tried to upset the very Throne, and reform both Sire and Son ! '
Despite his pessimism, there is no evidence
that the poet breathes anything but the patriotic
spirit, yet his patriotism is tuned to a key rather
foreign to the intelligence manufactured under
our modern imperialistic environment. His hatred
'THE NEW ROME' 291
of the sword will not be modified. In this he
remains the poet of old. Expediency to him in
such a question as this is a vulgar, dishonest
shibboleth.
Not love thee, dear old Flag ? not bless
This Eng-land, sea and shore ?
England, if I loved thee less
My song- might praise thee more, —
1 'd have thee strong to right the wrong,
And wise as thou art free ;
For thee I 'd claim a stainless fame,
A bloodless victory !
Not love the dear old Flag? not bless
Our England, sea and shore ?
O England, those who love thee less
May stoop to praise thee more.
To keep thy fame from taint of shame
I pray on bended knee.
But where the braggart mouths thy name
I hail no victory !
To most of us, philosophers or otherwise, the
doctrines of strength and success are the doctrines
of nature and of expediency, but the poet is of
another mind. It is not the flag of victory that
concerns him most, it is not the victor in the
struggle. His is the 'Song of the Slain,' the
song of the vanquished ; not when * slain ' or 'van-
quished' under the white flag of freedom, or up-
held by hands with blood unstained, but when
found under the black flag, which to the poet's
eye seems to wave wherever greed and mere
desire for Empire is the motive force of war :
This is the Song of the Weak
Trod 'neath the heel of the Strong !
This is the Song of the hearts that break
And bleed as we ride along,—
From sea to sea we singing sweep, but this is the slain man's Song !
292 ROBERT BUCHANAN
And while the gospel of the strong right arm is
preached, the gospel of the triumph of mere
animal superiority, the poet reminds mankind that
it was not alone the mighty arm and the keen
ear and eye that compassed the mighty things
of the past :
' We are men in a world of men, not gods ! ' the Strong Man cried ;
' Yea men, but more than men,' the Dreamer of Dreams replied ;
' 'Tis not the mighty Arm (the Lion and the Bear have that),
'Tis not the Ear and the Eye (for those hath the Ounce and the Cat),
'Tis not the form of a Man upstanding erect and free.
For this hath the forest Ape, yea the face of a Man hath he ;
'Tis not by these alone, ye compass'd the mighty things,
Hew'd the log to a ship, till the ship swept out on wings,
Ye are men in a world of men, lord of the seas and streams,
But ye dreamed ye were more than men when ye heark'd to the
Dreamers of Dreams !
And the Dream begat the Deed, and grew with the growth of the
years,
So ye were the Builders of Earth, but loe were the Pioneers !
' We are men in a world of men, not gods,' the Strong Man cried ;
' Then woe to thy race and thee,' the Dreamer of Dreams replied ;
' The Tiger can fight and feed, the Serpent can hear and see.
The Ape can increase his kind, the Beaver can build, like thee.
Have I led thee on to find thee of all things last and least,
A Man who is only a Man, and therefore less than a beast?
Who bareth a red right arm, and crieth, " Lo, I am strong ! "
Who shouts to an empty sky a savage triumphal song.
Who apes the cry of the woods, who crawls like a snake and lies,
Who loves not, neither is loved, but crawleth a space and dies, —
Ah, woe indeed to the Dream that guided thee all these years,
And woe to the Dreamers of Dreams who ran as thy Pioneers ! '
His sympathy and love for animals is expressed
strongly in the poems 'The Man with the Red
Right Hand,' and * The Song of the Fur Seal,'
a sympathy he expressed in rather exag-
gerated language in 'The City of Dream.' His
love of peace is the 'motif of the poem 'Peace
not a Sword,' and his distaste for the boastful
•THE NEW ROME* 293
voices which cry aloud in verse of deeds about
which Heroes of old were silent, is expressed
vividly in ' Hark now, what fretful Voices' :
The Hero then was silent,
The Martyr then was dumb ;
for glory is wrought through deeds of heroes,
* not shrieks of Chanticleer.'
'Songs of Empire' conclude with 'The Last
Bivouac ' :
No sound disturbs those camps so chill,
No banner waves, no clarions ring, —
Imperial Death sits cloak'd and still
With eyes turned eastward, listening
To that great throng
Which sweeps along
With battle-cry and thunder tread,
To join the bivouacs of the Dead !
• •••••
Sentinel-stars their vigil keep !
The hooded Spectre sitteth dumb,
While still to join the Hosts asleep
The Legions of the Living come :
'Neath Heaven's blue arch
They march and march.
Ever more silent as they tread
More near the bivouacs of the Dead.
In the second division, * Thro' the Great City,' we
are brought to face again many of those realities
of misery which the ' London Poems ' suggested.
The poet's gift of tears is nowhere stronger than
when in the gloom of mean streets, and under the
shadow of vice and crime he discerns the pathos
and tragedy of feeble lives struggling with the
master powers of sin, temptation, and disease.
'The Sisters of Midnight,' who are those lost
294 ROBERT BUCHANAN
women whose very existence lessens the possibility
of danger to others — * the lost who die that you may
live '—are painted in words which deaden the soul
with despair for the misery and the hopelessness
of the whole social scheme. Take one passage
from 'Annie, or the Waifs Jubilee,' which appears
under the sub-title of 'The Last Christians.' We
echo the poet's cry. Can these things be, and men
still say that Hell is but a dream ?
. . . Who hath not seen her, on dark nights of rain,
Or when the Moon is chill on the chill street,
Creeping from shade to shade in grief and pain.
Showing her painted cheeks for man's disdain
And wrapt in woe as in a winding-sheet ?
Sin hath so stain'd it none may recognise
The face that once was innocent and fair,
And hollow rings are round the hungry eyes.
And shocks of grey replace the golden hair ;
And all her chance is, when the drink makes blind
The foulest and the meanest of mankind.
To hide her stains and force a hideous mirth.
And gain her body's food the old foul way —
Ah, loathsome dead sea fruit that eats like earth,
Her mouth is foul with it both night and day !
So that corruption and the stench of Death
Consume her body and pollute her breath,
And all the world she looks upon appears
A dismal charnel-house of lust and tears !
Sick of the horror that corrupts the flesh.
Tangled in vice as in a spider's mesh.
Scenting the lazar-house, in soul's despair.
She sees the gin-shop's bloodshot eyeballs glare,
And creepeth in, the feverish drug to drain
That blots the sense and blinds the aching brain ;
And then with feeble form and faltering feet
Again she steals into the midnight street.
Seeks for her prey, and woefully takes flight
To join her spectral sisters of the Night !
And with this take a passage from 'Sisters of
Midnight,' and with eyes wide open to what
'THE NEW ROME' 295
may be seen at every step we take in the very
heart of the Modern Rome— ay, in Modern Any-
where—let us decide if the indication here is
drawn on too strong lines :
Poisonous paint on us, under the gas,
Smiling like spectres, we gather bereaven ;
Leprosy's taint on us, ghost-like we pass,
Watch'd by the eyes of yon pitiless Heaven !
Let the stars stare at us ! God, too, may glare at us
Out of the Void where He hideth so well . . .
Sisters of Midnight, He damn'd us in making us.
Cast us like carrion to men, then forsaking us.
Smiles from His throne on these markets of Hell !
Laugh ! Those who turn from us, too, have their price !
There, for the proud, other harlots are dressing.
Then too may learn from us man's old device —
Food for his lust, with some sham of a blessing !
Sons of old Adam there buy the fine madam there,
Bid with a coronet, — yea, or a crown !
Sisters, who 'd envy the glory which graces them ?
They, too, are sold to the lust which embraces them,
Ev'n in the Church, with the Christ looking down !
Of other divisions of this volume, 'Latter-day
Gospels' views, for us, much of the spirit and
tendencies of many of our later prophets. Of
these, 'Justinian ' is evidently inspired by the ex-
ample of the two Mills. The ' New Buddha ' lets
us into the spirit of Schopenhauer, whilst there
are poems on Nietszche and ' The Lost Faith.'
The volume is also enriched by half a dozen
Land and Sea Songs, of which 'The Mermaid'
is a splendid piece of broad comedy, and written
evidently to be sung.
Interest is also added by the fact that many of
the poems are addressed in a personal note to
296 ROBERT BUCHANAN
contemporaries and others, chiefly in the world of
letters. — Tennyson :
Dear singing' Brother, who so long
Wore Galahad's white robe of Fame,
And kept it stainless like thy name
Thro' dreary days of doubting song ;
Who blest the seasons as they fell,
Contented with the flowers they bring.
Nor soar'd to Heaven on Milton's wing,
Nor walked with Dante's ghost thro' Hell,
Heine
Zola
Ibsen
Full of flowers are his eager hands
As by Eve or Lilith he lies caressed,
But he laughs ! and they turn to ashes and sands.
As he rains them upon her breast !
Nothing he spares 'neath the sad blue Heaven,
All he mocks and regards as vain ;
Nothing he spares— not his own love even.
Or his own despair and pain !
There 's Zola, grimy as his theme.
Nosing the sewers with cynic pleasure,
Sceptic of all that poets dream.
All hopes that simple mortals treasure.
There 's Ibsen puckering up his lips.
Squirming at Nature and Society,
Drawing with tingling finger-tips
The clothes off naked Impropriety !
Walt Whitman :
The noblest head 'neath Western skies.
The tenderest heart, the clearest eyes,
Are thine, my Socrates, whose fate
Is beautifully desolate !
•THE NEW ROME' 297
Kipling :
Come, Kipling, with thy soldiers three,
Thy barrack-ladies frail and fervent.
Forsake thy themes of butchery
And be the merry Muses' servant !
Robert Burns :
God bless him ! Tho' he sinn'd and fell,
His sins are all forgiven,
Since with his wit he conquer'd Hell
And with his love show'd Heaven !
He was the noblest of us all.
Yet of us all a part.
For every Scot, howe'er so small,
Is high as BURNS'S heart !
Thomas Hardy :
Shepherd, God bless thy task, and keep thee strong
To help poor lambs that else might die astray ! . . .
Thy midnight cry is holier than the song
The summer uplands heard at dawn of day !
Henry James :
Tell James to burn his continental
Library of the Detrimental,
And chmb a hill, or take a header
Into the briny, billowy seas.
Or find some strapping Muse and wed her.
Professor Blackie :
Confound your croakers and drug concoctors !
I 've sent them packing at last, you see !
I 'm in the hands of the best of doctors.
Dear cheery and chirpy Doctor B. !
And in fine Gilbertian swing the poet puts
these rhymes into the mouth of the * Essential
Christian,' with whom he came into literary
298 ROBERT BUCHANAN
contact at the time of the publication of 'The
Wandering Jew ' :
If I desire to end my days at peace with all theolog-ies,
To win the penny-a-liner's praise, the Editor's apologies,
Don't think I mean to cast aside the Christian's pure beatitude,
Or cease my vagrant steps to guide with Christian prayer and
platitude.
No, I 'm a Christian out and out, and claim the kind appellative
Because, however much I doubt, my doubts are simply Relative ;
For this is law, and this I teach, tho' some may think it vanity,
That whatsoever creed men preach, 'tis Essential Christianity !
In Miracles I don't beheve, or in Man's Immortality—
The Lord was laughing in his sleeve, save when he taught
Morahty ;
He saw that flesh is only grass, and (tho' you grieve to learn it) he
Knew that the personal Soul must pass and never reach Eternity.
In short, the essence of his creed was gentle nebulosity
Compounded for a foolish breed who gaped at his verbosity ;
And this is law, and this I teach, tho' you may think it vanity.
That whatsoever creed men preach, 'tis Essential Christianity !
I freely tipple Omar's wine with ladies scant of drapery,
I think Mahomet's Heaven fine, though somewhat free and
capery ;
I feel a great respect for Joss, although he 's none too beautiful !
To fetiches, as to the Cross, I 'm reverent and dutiful ;
I creep beneath the Buddhist's cloak, I beat the tom-tom cheerily,
And smile at other Christian folk who take their creed too drearily ;
For this is law, and this I teach aloud to all Gigmanity,
That whatsoever creed men preach, 'tis Essential Christianity !
To all us literary gents the future life 's fantastical.
And both the Christian Testaments are only wrote sarcastical ;
They're beautiful, we all know well, when viewed as things
poetical.
But all their talk of Heaven and Hell is merely theoretical.
But we are Christian men indeed, who, striking pious attitudes.
Raise on a minimum of creed a maximum of platitudes !
For this is law, and this we teach, with grace and with urbanity.
That whatsoever creed men preach, 'tis Essential Christianity !
Satire is no stranger to Robert Buchanan.
CHAPTER XII
CONCLUSION— MR. BUCHANAN'S SIGNIFICANCE
It is expedient, occasionally, for the wisest man
to recall some of the commonplaces upon which
he built his wisdom, and one of these is the truth
that all criticism of literature and of life must
depend upon the point of view. Not that we
are to be blinded by the heresy, that every point
of view conveys an equally good perspective of
the Truth, and that one view is only better in a
very comparative sense than another ; but it is
necessary to estimate not only the capacity of see-
ing aright, and the elevation from which the sight
is taken, but also what the view is chiefly meant
to incorporate and interpret. The scientist, with
cold eye bent upon the minutiae of living things
and of morbid products, interprets life and its
decadences and evolutions in the light of pheno-
mena. It is his duty to record facts. He may
go further and join with those we call the
philosophers, and enumerate principles, but the
principles he is concerned with reach no further
than the outer gates of the supreme Aoyos, the
governing spirit of Nature, the God of the worlds.
29y
300 ROBERT BUCHANAN
The mystery within he leaves to the Poets and
the Dreamers. The Poets may not have strong
enough wings to fly upwards to the golden
gates, and then they are content to be mere birds,
singing in the ears of the flowers or chanting
an inspiring note in the bright beams, which,
flashing from the gates above, are spent on the
earth below. But to others. Life is viewed on
none so inspiring levels. To some it is 'vanitas
vanitatum,' philosophising on it, unworthy of the
higher energies, the higher mentality of man.
To others, the whole Book of Life is already
writ under the eye of Authority and Tradition,
and there is no Truth beyond its age-worn bind-
ings. To the cynic, 'the world is a bundle of
hay, mankind the asses that pull ' ; to the mere
man of muscle, it is a vantage-ground for physical
struggle ; to the weak, only a place where sooner
or later one has to die. There are many who
view life merely as an antechamber to death,
like Browning, 'counting life just a stuff to try
the soul's strength on,' with the danger of making
life a process of dying ; to others again, the whole
problem has to be solved in this world, before
the passing into forgetfulness. The evidence
of Nature teaches the serious thinker to uphold
one of three distinct points of view. First,
that the principle of Nature is the struggle for
existence and survival of the fittest, and that it
is right that the strong should accede to their
lawful heritage ; * that men are men in a world of
men, not gods.' Second, that an understanding
V
MR. BUCHANAN'S SIGNIFICANCE 301
of this principle necessitates a moral recognition of
the fact that the whole energy of humanity should
be spent in assisting the weak in their competi-
tion with the strong, and here enter the religious
systems of the world, especially that of Christianity.
And third, that the Truth of the matter is reached,
as Aristotle put it, by a balance of contraries.
It is extremely difficult to take more than a
partial view of Truth, a partial view of Life. The
greater philosophers, with their brains at white
heat, strive to attain it with some success ; but
however clear the point of sight, however free
from astigmatism the mental lens, the view must
remain partial, and in more senses than one
arbitrary. Even though temperamental, racial,
and class tendencies be inhibited, or modified, or
at least controlled in the economies of actual life,
there still remain, not only the general limitations
of human conception, but also the insufficiency of
knowledge, the unequal balance of emotion and
reason, which prevent us holding the balance of
Truth at an absolute level. And in a rich and
varied world, where are we to find the unbiassed
mind, the unimpassioned soul, that is to be
crowned as the dispenser of justice between the
several truths ? The point of view of the philo-
sophical scientist is viewed with distrust by the
poet, in that the former is apt to undervalue those
qualities and gifts which are generally classified
outside the area of mere reason — the qualities of
intuition and emotion, and the gifts of inspiration
and suggestion ; the scientist in return regarding
302 ROBERT BUCHANAN
with suspicion a view of life whose interpretation
is not perhaps directly through the medium of
these spiritual qualities and gifts, but which is
in a marked sense influenced by them. Add to
this the knowledge that in the evolution of social
life no man can well stand alone, and that time
has driven him, consciously or unconsciously, into
corporate bodies, religious, political, and moral,
which prevent him speaking the Truth apart
from the teachings and influences of these cor-
porations.
And although Mr. Buchanan is freer than most
thinkers from the barnacles of convention and
custom — untied by faithful adherence to organised
systems— it is yet not very difficult for the critic
who is sensitive to fine distinctions to indicate
the partiality of the poet's view. Even in his
early probational poems his spiritualised concep-
tion of life in the * unsung cities' streets ' is after
all drawing us away from the true philosophical
perspective of the lives he is dealing with, and
his belief in the immortality of every living thing
does not afford a very helpful solution to the
problem of the higher improvement and evolution
of nature. If Mr. Buchanan had viewed man as
the criminologist and the practical philanthropist
have to view him, he would have been suspicious
of a point of view which concedes eternity to the
born criminal and the habitual offender. The
salvation of 'The Man Accurst,' however beauti-
ful in its conception, is obtained at a risk to
this higher evolution; and the partial view is
MR. BUCHANAN'S SIGNIFICANCE 303
emphasised even more markedly by the fact that
all this man's villainy, baseness, brutality, and
hatred of the fair paths would not be likely to
find their ablution under the emotional condi-
tions which prompted the decree of his salvation.
Nature at least gives no glimpse of such a
disastrous experiment in altruistic rewards.
In his dramatic attack upon historic Christianity,
the same partiality of view is evident. There is
part of the truth, but not the whole truth, and
that, as Goethe has put it, is often worse than a
lie. The poet omits, what is a mere matter of
justice, to pay a tribute to the beneficent altruism
of the Christian Churches in the darkness of the
middle ages, as far at least as it was used as
a means of protecting women, and this even in
view of the fact that this altruism was not un-
tinged by a pernicious form of monkish egoism.
Nor must it be forgotten that most of the phil-
anthropic work in social life has been conducted
under the inspiratory fervour of that Church
which begs the name of the great Teacher of
Nazareth.
Partial too is his view of war, of vivisection, and
of the various factors concerned in human ameli-
oration and social evolution. His just hatred of
the horrors of war leads him to forget that history
has taught that the most warlike nations are the
most manly, and that more than a touch of the
Philistinism of mere physical contest is necessary
to save nations from the artistic sleepiness of over-
civilisation. It must not be forgotten that the
304 ROBERT BUCHANAN
salvation of the more highly evolved states must
be secured by an occasional appeal to those
virtues which only an active participation in war
can arouse. Nor must we omit to remember that
war is one of the means by which Nature secures
her evolutionary end, not only by the destruction
of much of the waste material of states, but also
by securing a means of placing those who are
incapable of voluntary social altruism under the
strict surveillance of organised discipline. When
opposed to vivisection, on the other hand, apart
altogether from the consideration of the exaggera-
tions which are associated with its detractors, it
must not be forgotten by one who views human
happiness, human progress, and human love as
the chief bases of all philosophy, that its practice
is founded on the very principles which have sent
scientific thought and scientific investigation—
with their concomitant results in the way of the
enlightenment of human sorrow— so rapidly to
the front as social forces.
Mr. Buchanan, a very strong man, is not alone
in the tendency of his strength to ripen into
despotism. Many of his ideas have tended in that
direction ; perhaps they appear to have done so
in a more marked fashion in an age of feeble
conviction and dilettante method. By this tend-
ency to give full swing to great and eclectic ideas
his view has been rendered more palpably partial.
In most cases a sublime idealist, the poet is apt
to become, to use Napoleon's favourite phrase,
an ideologist. Seizing hold of the teachings
MR. BUCHANAN'S SIGNIFICANCE 305
of science to support him in his criticisms of life,
he hesitates in following the scientific method to
its logical conclusion. This hesitation, however,
diminished in his later studies, and there is evident
a larger consistency of treatment, and accordingly
a less partial point of view, than there was when
he first essayed his high flights in philosophical
speculation set to the tune of noble rhythm.
But it may seem the very height of crudeness of
design to apply this method of criticism to the
work of a writer of imaginative literature. To
appreciate the poet, one must come into genuine
emotional relationship with him, and it is cruel and
idle to allow a stampede of rational cattle into the
sequestered plot of ground where the poet keeps
his delicate flowers. This is to borrow an analogy
from Mr. Cadenhead. But Mr. Buchanan has
not contented himself with the mere poetical or
dramatical representation of his point of view ;
he has in nearly every case rushed into prose to
augment the rationality of his contentions. In
this fact is found the excuse of the critic.
To Mr. Buchanan life is a serious concern and
poetry a serious mission, and until the volume of
life is closed and placed remote from strife in
Death's black library, everything is of import-
ance that bears on the solution of life's mystery
and Nature's cruelty. Literature to him is the
merest waste of force, unless it tells us something
new, or lends a new significance to what is old.
* Mankind wants poetry and not criticism ; it wants
earnest thought and life, and not a philosophy
u
306 ROBERT BUCHANAN
of the schoolroom; it wants fearless truth and
imagination applied to all the great phenomena
of creation ; it wants, in one word, a living creed,
not a rehabilitation of creeds that are indeter-
minate.' * Literature,' he says, * cannot be divorced
from life any more than poetry can be from religion.
The two are one, and a man is great or wise, not
because by humouring his reputation he succeeds
in hocussing the world into an opinion of his
greatness or wisdom, not because he is corro-
borated by the folly of his inferiors, but because
he is saner than his fellows in the purest sanity
of goodness and love. The greatest writers are
those who possess the grandest and most all-
embracing power of sympathetic vision. For
great writing is great wisdom, and great wisdom
means great goodness, that is, love for sympathy
with all created things animate and inanimate.'
What is the special significance of Robert
Buchanan as a poet? To understand what we
mean by the word significance, let us glance at
any of the great men who have drunk deep at the
well of life, and have heralded some sort of dawn
for the night of human darkness. What is the sig-
nificance of iEschylus but his supreme power of
foreseeing great eternal truths, and realising them
in terms of the noblest passion in immortal drama.
Of Victor Hugo the same may be said, with the
difference that here the medium is the poetical
novel. Where lies the significance of Goethe but
in his supremity as the analytical critic of human
competition and human emotion— the first poet
MR. BUCHANAN'S SIGNIFICANCE 307
of the new evolutionary movement, and primarily
the apostle of egoism. Carlyle has his signifi-
cance in his unique power of applying ethics to
political speculation and action, and in his
enormous capacity to rouse ; Ruskin, in his
capacity of giving his readers the sense of sight,
of showing new wonders in the world that is
ever before our eyes. Walt Whitman is * supreme
in his power of conveying moral stimulation ' ; and
the significance of George Meredith is his almost
isolated power of expressing personal passion,
together with his marvellous insight into the
spirit of comedy, that nimble god who watches
over all. Herbert Spencer, the recording angel
of the newer evolutionary spirit, derives his signi-
ficance from his power of unveiling the mystery
of human responsibility in the face of a society
based not on ideas, but on pure economics;
Huxley, by bringing to bear on historical and theo-
logical criticism the deductions of the biological
and other sciences; and David Ferrier, by applying
his own experimental researches to the ameliora-
tion of suffering humanity. The process might
be extended to infinity. Rudyard Kipling has
his significance in not only voicing the instincts
of a new Imperial spirit, but also absorbing in a
dramatic fashion the spirit of science in * wor-
shipping ' the god of things as they are ; and even
(to quote Mr. Lang's majestic sonnet) when
From the songs of modern speech
Men turn, and see the stars, and feel the free
Shrill wind beyond the close of heavy flowers,
And through the music of the languid hours,
308 ROBERT BUCHANAN
They hear like ocean on a western beach
The surge and thunder of the Odyssey,
they discern, on closer acquaintanceship, a signi-
ficance even when under the sensuous influence
of the 'surge and thunder,' its supreme signi-
ficance lying in its truth to the state of the
civilisation which it reflects, 'the description of
its daily acts and the motives which make indi-
viduals act in the sense of their character and
of their race.' Again, what is the significance of
such men as Dante or Shakespeare? To quote
Victor Hugo, ' Dante incarnated the supernatural,
Shakespeare incarnated Nature.' But we must
not forget, in indicating the significance of a seer
or a teacher, that circumstances and influences are
capable of modifying the possibility of permanency
in the quality of the significance. Instance, for
example, the fact that 'Milton lost much of his
significance under the influence of modern thought,
and that Virgil suffered from the influences of the
Renaissance.'
From this host of great lights let us come to
our poet, and attempt to indicate his significance.
Passing out of our memory for the present the
thought of his earlier poems, we call into view the
series of epics and odes, carols and ballads, which
extended from the publication of 'The Book of
Orm' to that of 'The New Rome.' Through-
out the whole of this work several ideas are
reiterated. In the first place, that man is con-
tinually searching for a solution of life's meaning,
and in that search calls to the God-Father for light.
MR. BUCHANAN'S SIGNIFICANCE 309
To this cry there never comes an answer. The face
of God is for ever hid behind the veil ; the law of
God, stern, inexorable, working on unchanged,
is never broken— that law expressed in terms of
science as the struggle for existence and the sur-
vival of the fittest. To ameliorate the suffering
of mankind, human love springs supreme and
eternal, together with a belief in a future life of
reconciliation in the celestial ocean, in which some
recompense shall be found for earthly inequalities.
The essence of this human love is the Christ — the
Jew, Jesus of Nazareth — and in his protest against
the inexorable law of the Father, he, representing
all the time the ambition of the human soul, is,
in a sense '« ^eos '—atheist— that is, apart from
God. All this we have indicated as we pro-
ceeded. The sublimity of Jesus lies not in his
claim of divine fatherhood, or in his unfulfilled
dream of the world's salvation, but in his recogni-
tion of the despair of humanity under the cruelty
of a despotic egoism. In this sense, God the
Father is the Grand Egoist ; Jesus, and with
him Humanity in general, the Sublime Altruist.
Oppressing the fair face of Christ's noble altruism
is the cloud of the Churches, and in striking con-
trast to the loving freedom of soul which is the
essence of the teaching of the Nazarene, is the
attempt by the theologies to strangle the Christ
in creeds. Having accepted the evolutionary
spirit in most of its bearings, the poet is consistent
enough to conclude that if the records of miracles
and the so-called historical documents are not to
310 ROBERT BUCHANAN
be trusted as scientific evidence, then it follows
that some other explanation must be found to
account for many of the details of Jesus' life.
This position being adopted, there is nothing
then of an abhorrent nature in the view the poet
presents of the early life of Mary the Mother as
it is found in the ' Ballad.' Only one conclusion
could be drawn, and it adds to Mr. Buchanan's
significance that he seized hold of this matter
and treated it boldly. The poet or seer must
always discern the truth sooner than other men,
and granting the acceptance of the eclectic posi-
tion as it is conveyed, for instance, by Mr. Huxley,
and there can be no future for any literary move-
ment careless of science, the time will come when
the logical sequence will be a question of common-
place acceptation.
Mr. Buchanan's significance lies then in the
fact that he has used, as a subject for poetry,
the great truths Science has taught, and those his
own speculative imagination seemed to discern
behind the cloud of conventional belief. Disdain-
ful of using the mighty medium of poetry as a
simple reflector of things as they are in a con-
ventional sense, he has used these great truths,
or attempts at truth, as the bases of his poetical
aspirations, and in so doing has accomplished
what he longed to see attempted in his earlier
outlook on life. It is another question whether
in so doing he has been true to literature and to
history. Truth to literature is a much more
difficult question to solve than truth to history.
MR. BUCHANAN'S SIGNIFICANCE 311
History is a record of facts ; literary methods are
evanescent. They are born, they evolve, die, are
renascent, and so on. We are not talking of
metre or the mere grammar of literature, but
of the method, dramatic or otherwise, used by
the seer. Taking a man who has used similar
material, though in a totally different spirit and
with a totally different object in view, it would be
as absurd to compare Milton and Buchanan, as it
would be to compare, say, Offenbach and Wagner.
There is a kind of gospel of grammar, metre,
and rhythm, but none of the method by which
any particular form of truth shall be presented in
literary shape. Truth to history is easier. Here
we are dealing with a comparison of facts.
There is another form of truth less exact and
less definite, varying in regard to the point of
view. That is the truth of deduction— the infer-
ences to be drawn from ascertained fact. If this
aspect of the question is to be considered, the poet,
— and there is nothing unnatural in this— clears
away much of that nebulosity of doubt which the
scientist is unable to do by the methods at his
disposal. The poet is not content with the simple
view of the concrete facts of nature ; he is prepared
to accept the longings of the soul as something
as palpably true as those more material facts.
Science, replying that it has a theory of the
evolution of these longings which might relegate
them to mere responses to sensuous emotions,
depending for their basis on acquired knowledge
and prejudices, gets no sympathy from the poet.
312 ROBERT BUCHANAN
who sees in these yearnings the promise of the
full light of the Celestial Ocean, and the joys
of human reconciliation. Science, accepting the
principle of the survival of the fittest as the
only basis on which the higher evolution can
be reached, and recognising that the struggle
between natural forces, between the strong and
weak, between health and disease, is the only
means to secure the prolongation of natural
vitality in its highest form, is passed by the poet,
who demands from the All-Father the reason of
this cruel principle. The same spirit makes him
protest against all forms of investigation that
necessitate injury to lower organisms, and against
wars between creatures of the same instinct, the
same possibilities, and the same aspirations.
In this we venture to indicate the criticism of
science ; the criticism of the theological position is
evident, and need not be insisted upon.
To this must be added Mr. Buchanan's very
significant study of the Devil, the parallels of
which we have already considered. If the Devil
is to be referred back to the original Daevas of
Zoroastrian Scriptures as the Spirit of Evil work-
ing conjointly with the Spirit of Good in the
organisation and evolution of the nature of man,
then Mr. Buchanan's Devil is both sophistical and
paradoxical, and loses in being so, much of its
significance. But if we are to study him as he
was viewed by the Churches, and as in later
days made responsible for an appearance as the
serpent in the Mosaic story of the Garden of Eden,
MR. BUCHANAN'S SIGNIFICANCE 313
then the poet's Devil, claiming to be the spirit of
knowledge and the spirit of progress, is logical
and consistent enough. In this case he comes
to be the JEon of Science, the herald of light, he
who, in face of the direct and indirect opposition
of ecclesiasticism, fought for centuries at the head
of the great army of secularists, an army which
went to war for the sake of the great principle of
eclecticism, that is, — absolute freedom of thought,
and for the sake of emancipation from those super-
stitious fears which kept mankind from facing the
truths of nature, and using them for its own pur-
pose. Viewed from this point of view, there is a
deep significance in the poet's conception of the
JEon, who added to his schemes, not the defiance
of the laws of nature, but the discovery of the
means by which the apparent cruelty of these
laws might be modified. In this sense he becomes
the pioneer of scientific altruism.
This love of altruistic action, and this hatred of
the cruel egoism of nature, which latter is, after
all, reply the scientists, ultimately altruistic, are
the essentials at the base of all the poet's work.
*God shall cast away no man' is the continued
note of his most impassioned writing, whether
found dramatically expressed in 'The Ballad of
Judas Iscariot,' * The Vision of the Man Accurst,'
or in the tragedies of common life as they are con-
veyed in his * London Poems ' — the later of which,
in their sublimity in surrounding tragic common-
places with a spiritual halo, add a fresh signifi-
cance to Mr. Buchanan as a poet.
314 ROBERT BUCHANAN
As we have indicated, there are in many of the
poet's more brilliant attempts evident signs not
only of anachronisms, but of sophistries and para-
doxes ; yet the underlying principle of Revolt
in the name of mankind against the Father of
suffering and death, set to poetical expression,
cannot fail to individualise the work of Mr.
Buchanan. The failure of his significance cannot
be prophesied, or if prophesied, relegated with any
definiteness to futurity. Whatever he has failed
to do, he has at least satisfied the standard set
up for himself— he has given us fearless truth and
imagination, applied to the great phenomena of
creation ; he has not rehabilitated creeds that are
indeterminate. He has faced fearlessly the pro-
blems that must come to all of us, however
cynical, sceptical, or dilettante we may be, concern-
ing man's relation to man, and to the revelations
of the Godhood in nature. However inadequate
has been his expression, however partial his view,
however sophistical his general expression, he
has at least faced truth fearlessly and eclectically,
and in so doing has laid claim to the highest
intellectual morality. For let it not be forgotten
by those who are startled by the poet's eclecticism,
who even shudder at his view of what has been
to them truth sacred in the holy of holies of their
soul, that to men of speculation and of fearless
outlook, the unforgivable sin is intellectual im-
morality. The eclectics can only lift up their faces
fearlessly to mankind, they can only express their
prayer to a God-Father by speaking the truth as
MR. BUCHANAN'S SIGNIFICANCE 315
they find it ; and however wrong they may be, how-
ever far they may drift away from the white throne
where Truth sits in her lonely splendour— espied
occasionally, but never reached, by poet or thinker
— yet in the very sincerity of their search they find
their salvation and their justification. And it is
necessary to remind mankind occasionally with re-
gard to the question of susceptibility, that those of
orthodox faith do not hold a monopoly either of
conscience or of feeling. The constant reiteration
of inconsequent and illogical dogmas is as distaste-
ful to an eclectic searcher after truth, as are the
fearless analyses of doctrine and dogma at the
hand of the eclectic distasteful to the faithful ad-
herent of the venerable creeds. The suscepti-
bilities of the one deserve as much consideration
as those of the other. In the words of Carlyle, * He
who builds by the wayside has many masters,' and
members of a church militant need not be sur-
prised if the enemy they are attacking use as
effective, or even more effective, weapons than they
use themselves. Reverence can be monopolised
by no particular theology or particular school of
thought. The eclectic thinker demonstrates his
reverence not only by the use of the abilities which
Nature has assigned to him, but also by the very
fact that he is suspicious of systems which paro-
chialise the worship of the supreme Aoyos by cramp-
ing it in creeds. The universal recognition of that
simple fact will go far to bind humanity by the
bond of a common love. As for our poet, although
ecclesiastics may say that he has acceded too much
3i6 ROBERT BUCHANAN
to the autocracy of reason, and even though
scientists may be suspicious inasmuch as he has
demanded an equal right for the spiritual emo-
tions, yet the poet will reply that spiritualism and
naturalism— using them here conventionally as
distinctive terms — are necessary elements of every
work of art, and the predominancy of one over
the other has no certain or unchangeable ratio.
Finally, let it be remembered to Mr. Buchanan's
honour that he has never attempted to humour
his reputation, and has never been led to follow the
false gods of those who ensured him a certain place
in contemporary estimation if he would but promise
to sing a poem occasionally to the gods of the
moment, however much he suspected their divinity.
His methods of dealing with these deities were
not always pleasant or delicate; but having at a
very early stage of his career been driven into the
wilderness, he could not, as an Ishmael, use the
methods of a pampered Isaac. It will probably
be found that the poet v/ill not come to his own
till the remembrance of these, what may appear to
some as, literary blasphemings is forgotten, and
certainly not till contemporary thought comes up
to the point reached by the seer.
Nor must we omit the significance of Mr.
Buchanan apart from his more prophetic and
speculative utterances. The author of 'The
Ballad of Judas Iscariot,' of 'White Rose and
Red,' and of 'Poet Andrew,' must always be
regarded with serious attention by students of
poetry, even if neglected by many of the
MR. BUCHANAN'S SIGNIFICANCE 317
petulantly ignorant collectors of anthologies and
their numerous friends. The foremost Scoto-Celtic
poet of our time, as he is called by Mrs. Sharp in
the 'Lyra Celtica,' can allow his phantasies and
realities in verse to be independent of the indiffer-
ence of cliques, as long as they touch the larger
heart and the more far-seeing criticism. ' His deep
insight into Nature, and his fine interpretation of
the mystical sentiment bred of man's contact with
her, his delicate fancy, his semi-Celtic phantasy,'
to quote Dr. Japp, 'which in his treatment of
certain themes impart such glow and glamour
of colour, and weird witchery of impression, as no
other poet of the time has approached, not to
speak of his realistic, dramatic perception, as seen
in such ballads as "Liz" and "Nell" and "Meg
Blane," combine to place him apart amid the select
few, the best of whose work is to "live." He
touches the most commonplace things with the
light that never was on sea or shore, and yet
nothing of truth is sacrificed. This is the true
test of poetry. Then in his " Book of Orm "
he translates us to a world of dream, yet a world
in which the grand realities of life stand out bold,
like vast mountains whose lofty heads are lost in
mist, yet faintly outlined. You are moved to a
sense of some vast, vague, shadowy presence,
which, felt or unfelt, is weird, fateful, and inevit-
able, hovering over all life, and touching it with
awe and wonder. The manner in which Mr.
Buchanan traces out and justifies, in a poetic
sense, the bliss of gradual dissolution is at once
3i8 ROBERT BUCHANAN
elevated and powerful. The picture of the void
left on the sense and the imagination by the
sudden disappearance of all trace, even of the
poor body, as the dewdrop melts in the sun, the
horror, as of some awful fate for ever hovering
above and around, is suffused with the sense of
mystery and awe, and the recovery, as if from
some nightmare, is equally fine. In Mr. Buchanan's
genius,' says Dr. Japp, ' is wedded the grace and
witchery of delicate phantasy with the directest
and boldest realism. Nature and man stand
between the two, as it were, and the force of his
sympathies unites them, and brings them into
accord. ... He is alive to every thrill of the
intellectual, social, and moral atmosphere, and
translates, as his genius dictates, the impression
into art. ... He is in touch with all that makes
men feel, that makes men suffer, and that makes
men lonely, dissatisfied, and despair and doubt.'
Let Mr. Buchanan be tested on well-defined
lines, and what is the result ? If the question of
pure human Drama is concerned, excluding alto-
gether * The Drama of Kings,' of which the poet
himself is suspicious, let us take such poems as
*Fra Giacomo' and 'Hakon of Thule.' In each
of these we have a single idea, presented in a
perfect dramatic fashion, fearlessly true to the
central ' motif,' without any critical intrusion to mar
the simple directness of the idea. In 'ballad metre,'
let the severest and most academically critical
spirit be applied to 'The Battle of Drumliemoor'
and 'The Ballad of Judas Iscariot,' and let the
MR. BUCHANAN'S SIGNIFICANCE 319
result be realised. When simplicity of character
and equal simplicity of surroundings are to be
spiritualised in poetic expression, what is more
perfect than * Willie Baird'? Among genre and
pastoral pictures, * The Churchyard ' and * Down
the River ' must always occupy a notable position ;
and although Mr. Buchanan has written few lyrics,
his lyric-descriptive poems, of the type of ' Spring
Song in the City,' contain some of his finest work,
and are in every sense worthy of more than mere
contemporary estimation.
It has been suggested more than once, that all
Mr. Buchanan's ' aberrations ' have sprung from a
want of the sense of humour. It is this sense,
certainly, which gives us, more than any other, the
sane, the healthy estimate of life ; but a civilisation
which charges a man with the want of a virtue
should be certain, first, of its own righteousness.
'My critics,' says the poet, 'presume, I suppose,
that I ought to perceive the joke of the Noncon-
formist conscience and latter-day Christianity.'
Let us prove to our own mental and spiritual
satisfaction that modern civilisation and the
concurrent pursuit of an idealised religion are
compatible, and then we may be free to talk of the
want of sense of humour in others. If we face
facts as they are, and acquiesce in the charges
that the essential elements in modern, political,
and social life are incompatible in their practice
with the Faith of which our Royal master is the
defender, we may then be justified, by our in-
tellectual honesty at any rate, in viewing the want
320 ROBERT BUCHANAN
of humour in one who is mortal like the rest of us,
yet perceives the hollowness of making an eternal
compact between the rush for power and the
worship of show, and the doctrines of abnegation
and humility as preached on the Mount of Olives.
We recall, in this instance, what the present
Laureate wrote to Mr. William Watson at the time
when the latter was calling upon his countrymen
to risk international complications by plunging
into a piece of vague, benevolent altruism in favour
of a suppressed people. Mr. Austin reminded
Mr. Watson that if he * were but with him in his
pretty country-house, were but comfortably seated
by the Yule-logs' blaze, and joining with him in
seasonable conviviality, the enigmas of Providence
and the whole mysteries of things would become
transparent to him.' That is what we are virtually
saying to our poet—' God is in His heaven, all 's
right with the world.' There is still laughter,
and love, and song, and although we have not
yet discovered the universal tabloid for natural
egoism and ' original sin,' at any rate out of this
mixture of personal egoism and social altruism,
the love of war and the gospel of peace, worship of
strength and love of weakness, essential Material-
ism and professed Christianity, social purity and
organised vice, legalised monogamy and polygamy
in camera, we have made an excellent social broth
that will warm the national conscience, and make
us forget the submerged dissatisfaction in the
general sense of good-fellowship that this mess
of pottage inspires !
MR. BUCHANAN'S SIGNIFICANCE 321
The present writer firmly believes that the point
of view of the poet is often neither absolutely
true to history, nor, in a few cases, to his own
personal experience, but at the same time, he
doubts whether the test of humour can be applied
in the case of the poet's more serious efforts, for
the very reasons he has been attempting to indi-
cate. If there is a want of the sense of humour, it
springs from a belief that there is a likelihood of
any radical changes taking place in human para-
doxes. The poet himself owns that the law of God
is never broken, and therefore he is unlikely to get
much help from Nature, and if he but recall that
there is little evidence to show that the altruistic
spirit is evolving, he may rest satisfied that the
advance to human salvation will continue to be a
slow one, and checked by many retrograde steps.
Despite Mr. Herbert Spencer, man is born an
egoist as of yore. The change, if there be one,
lies not in the evolution of an altruistic spirit, but
in the accumulation of altruistic ideas, which
become the capital of Society. Man does not come
into his legacy in the mere process of being born ;
he inherits it as a member of a social state. * That
man is susceptible of a vast amount of improve-
ment by education, by instruction, and by the
application of his intelligence to the adaptation
of the conditions of life to his higher needs, I
entertain not the slightest doubt. But so long as
he remains liable to error, intellectual or moral, so
long as he is compelled to be perpetually on guard
against the cosmic forces, so long as he is haunted
X
322 ROBERT BUCHANAN
by inexpugnable memories and hopeless aspira-
tions, so long as the recognition of his intel-
lectual limitations forces him to acknowledge his
incapacity to penetrate the mystery of existence,
the prospect of attaining untroubled happiness,
or a state which can, even remotely, deserve the
title of perfection, appears to me to be as mislead-
ing an illusion as ever was dangled before the
eyes of poor Humanity.' ^
For the paradoxes and inconsistencies of social
life, what is wanted is not rhetoric but ridicule,
not passion but satire. And although the poet
in much of his work seems to lose sight of
this fact, he discerned at one time its essential
truth : ' It has been repeatedly forced upon me of
late, that of all things wanted by the present
generation, a satirist is wanted most ; one who
would tell the world its sins and foibles, not with
the sneaking snigger or familiar wink of a society
journalist, but with a voice loud and clear enough
to reverberate from Land's End to John o' Groat's.
It would matter little where the voice was first
heard. It might be in the pulpit, it might be on
the stage. It might sound as the voice of one
crying in the wilderness, or it might be heard, as
more than once heretofore, from the very heart of
the crowd. Since Dickens dropped the scourge,
satire has been sadly at a discount, and we are
in reality worse off for "censores morum" than
were our prototypes, the prosperous "bourgeoisie"
of the Second Empire. . . . Meanwhile Society,
1 Huxley.
MR. BUCHANAN'S SIGNIFICANCE 323
Msenad-like, twines flowers in her hair, and goes
from bad to worse. The only individuals who tell \
her of her vices are those who flourish through
them, and the cue of these is to lament over the (
ideals they first overthrew, and to pretend that i
goodness is useless, since there is no power but :
evil left. Well, even a comedy of the Empire
would be better than this. . . . The only straight- :
forward and truth-telling force at present at work |
is modern Science, but it is not sufficiently aggres-
sive in the social sphere to be of much avail. So ;
the feast goes on, so the soothsayer is put aside,
and the voice of the prophet is unheard. Some I
fine day, nevertheless, there will be a revelation—
the handwriting will be seen on the wall in the
colossal cipher of some supreme Satirist. How j
much of our present effulgent civilisation will last j
till then ? How much will not perish without any
aid from- without, by virtue of its own inherent ,
folly and dry-rot? Meantime, even a temporary j
revelation would be thankfully accepted. Such
satire as Churchill suddenly lavished upon the !
stage would be of service to Society just now. !
Even satire as wicked as that with which Byron j
deluged the "piggish domestic virtues" of the j
Georges would not be altogether amiss. Only, it '
must come in simple speech, not in such mystic ^
dress as that worn by St. Thomas of Chelsea
when he gave forth his memorable sartorial pro- j
phesies.' That embodies the spirit of wisdom. !
When angry rhetoric is but a douche of hot, and
indifference a douche of cold water, and reason a
324 ROBERT BUCHANAN
slow lethal process, ridicule and satire are deadly
poisons. A fuller recognition of this fact might
have led Mr. Buchanan nearer to that 'sense of
humour' without which life, whether we view it
on its social, moral, or intellectual sides, becomes
a very anarchic concern. But the sense of
humour is a two-edged sword, and many people
are apt to take it by the blade, and not by
the handle. If it brings us nearer to sanity, it
also may tend to paralyse our holiest convictions.
In fact, in an age when human ambitions and
human aims drift easily into social and conven-
tional moulds, when materialism and the principles
of social compromise are the fashionable gods,
there is a tendency to blur the face of aspiration,
to reduce the purple of hope and ambition to a
dull grey of indifferent acquiescence. And those
who preach control and sanity most fervently
see most clearly the dangers which lie before
us if this control and sanity are allowed to be
systematised into a gospel. After all, control as
a virtue is only of a negative sort ; and sanity
does not mean mediocrity and tameness, it
simply means wisdom. When we pursue the
normal level of living, let us not despise the man
on the look-out; while we hew stones and draw
water, let us not sneer at him who interrogates
the stars. And is it wise, in the ease of our own
calm sanity, to cherish a hatred of that hot blood
and indomitable persistence which inspire the
dreamer, the poet, and, in a more vicious sense,
the fanatic ?
MR. BUCHANAN'S SIGNIFICANCE 325
It is this blood that has inspired forlorn hopes,
this spirit which may drive a man to be crucified
for his belief. It would be a black day for the
world when emotion had fuller sway than
reason, when sensibility became a higher virtue
than sense, and passion a nobler pursuit than
sanity ; but it would be a blacker when the
worship of the evident in life and the pursuit of
the commonplace were raised to such a pitch that
the dreamer or the impassioned poet, voyaging on
seas for which Science has no chart, nor Ex-
perience any compass, were counted as men free
from their wits, or, to come back to the phrase we
beg, 'wanting in the sense of humour.' Mr.
George Meredith — always rapid as the dart to
pierce the heart of things— holds that it is the
first condition of sanity to believe that our civili-
sation is founded on common sense, and taking
his fellow-men to be as wise as himself, he stepped
no further into the elaboration of his terms. But
might it not be judicious to suggest that it is wise
always to understand that the essence of the
word, that is * sense,' is to have a more emphatic
emphasis than the prefix 'common,' and that in
the aggregate, common sense is not necessarily
the philosophy of mediocrity. And it is wise also to
remember that there is more in the scheme of life
than mere foundations. And even when we are
allowed to turn our minds to the gods, we must
not be accused of worshipping alone that Spirit of
Comedy which the genius of Mr. Meredith has
idealised in godhead — that spirit with its brows
326 ROBERT BUCHANAN
flung up like a fortress lifted by gunpowder, which
looks humanely malign, and roars with laughter
whenever men wax out of proportion, are self-
deceived and hoodwinked, and are given to run
riot in idolatries, and drift into vanities. The
older gods command our worship, and although
we may not discern them in the market-place, let
us not limit the world by the boundaries of the
bazaar, but let us recognise a world in which
poets may dream and voyage forth to catch the
message which they tell us the gods hold for
mortals ; a message which it will do us no harm
to hear, if not to embody in our philosophy.
Keats, in a memorable sonnet dedicated to Homer,
reminds the poet :
For Jove uncurtained Heaven to let thee live,
And Neptune made for thee a spermy tent,
And Pan made sing for thee his forest-hive.
And though Wordsworth, keenly alive to the
sanity which the pursuit of things as they are
only can bring, reminds us that *to the solid
ground of Nature trusts the mind that builds for
aye ' ; yet he, like all seers, was conscious of the
deadening power which a life in the fair paths of
common truths tends to have upon the human soul :
The world is too much with us ; late and soon
Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers :
Little we see in Nature that is ours ;
We have given our hearts away, a sordid boon.
This sea that bares her bosom to the moon.
The winds that will be howling at all hours,
And are up-gathered now like sleeping flowers.
For this, for everything, we are out of tune ;
It moves us not — Great God ! I 'd rather be
A pagan suckled in a creed outworn ;
MR. BUCHANAN'S SIGNIFICANCE 327
So might I, standing on this pleasant lea,
Have glimpses that would make me less forlorn,
Have sight of Proteus rising from the sea.
Or hear old Triton blow his wreathed horn.
The true humour, in fact, is reached by a knowledge
of good and evil evidenced from fact and compari-
son with a beatitude derived from an inspiratory
fervour which comes to us at those times when,
* from the songs of modern speech, men turn and
see the stars.'
Finally, to the poet, belief and living are twin
conceptions, and his faith is
Not far away
In the void Heaven up yonder, not on creeds
Upbuilded 'mid the ever-shifting sands,
Not in the Temple of God's sycophants.
But here, among our fellows, down as deep
As the last rung of Hell.
Hatred of mankind and love of God cannot exist
together :
Hate Man, and lo ! thou hatest, losest God ;
Keep faith in Man, and rest with God indeed.
He who has gone with us with any care, to view
the poet's outlook, will have a clear enough
vision of his philosophy. It is in the long-run
a glorious optimism, inasmuch as it implies
belief in the eternity of living, in the holiness of
human love. His distaste for creeds springs
from a simple belief that the last word of the
soul can never be written, and that an ever-
winged bird, soaring higher and higher in the
eye of God, cannot be brought to earth to sing
in the dreary cage wherein every note is formu-
lated and catalogued.
328 ROBERT BUCHANAN
He believes in Love, but not as it is painted
by the creeds. He finds no love in the great
struggle for life — therefore he sees none in the
will of the God-Father. He can praise and he can
pray, but he cannot love. God sends nothing
but agony, a struggle, and death.
Walk abroad ; and mark
The cony struggling in the foumart's fangs,
The deer and hare that fly the sharp-tooth'd hound,
The raven that with flap of murderous wing
Hangs on the woolly forehead of the sheep
And blinds its harmless eyes ; nor these alone.
But every flying, every creeping thing,
Anguishes in the fierce blind fight for life !
Sharp hunger gnaws the lion's entrails, tears
The carrion-seeking vulture, films with cold
The orbs of snake and dove. For these, for all,
Remains but one dark Friend and Comforter,
The husher of the weary waves of Will,
Whom men name Peace or Death.
But he believes in human Love, and cries out
his belief in the ears of priests and ascetics.
* Is there any honest man that doubts that Love,
even so-called " fleshly Love," is the noblest plea-
sure that man is permitted to enjoy; or that
sympathy of woman for man, and of man for
woman, is in its essence the sweetest sympathy
of which the soul is capable. Only one thing
is higher and better than Love's happiness, and
that one thing is Love's sorrow, when there
comes out of loss and suffering the sense of
compensation, of divine gain.'
After all, the wisest of men have occasionally
to wipe away the dew that dims the glass of
their philosophy. All efforts are comparative, all
MR. BUCHANAN'S SIGNIFICANCE 329
Truth is comparative. Good and bad are not yet
writ on the scrolls of the absolute, and to the
present writer Mr. Buchanan's merit lies not so
much in that he has dreamed often, and has
fluttered his poetical wings often, but in that he
has dared to bring the charm of poetical expres-
sion to bear on themes which were originally con-
sidered the sole property of philosophers and
speculators. While Tennyson is the mirror of
the present age, Carlyle its censor, and Mac-
aulay its panegyrist ; while Herbert Spencer is its
recording angel, and George Meredith the true
discerner of its comic spirit, Robert Buchanan
is the herald of its revolt, the mouthpiece of a
sphinx-like woe, which, as a seer, he knows is
buried deep down in the heart and soul of contem-
porary thought, and he realises that at the last.
God and the gods shall abide, wherever our souls seek a token,
Speech of the Gods shall be heard, the silence of Death shall be
broken.
And Man shall distinguish a sign, a voice in the midnight, a
tremor
From every pulse of the Heavens, to answer the heart of the
Dreamer !
Faces of gods and men shall throng the blue casements above
him !
Heaven shall be peopled with throngs of Spirits that watch him
and love him !
Mr. Linley Sambourne in a moment of inspira-
tion ^ has depicted the idealised figure of the
New Century springing from the wing of Time,
and buoyant and unconscious of the 'shades of
the prison-house,' straining forward with inquiring,
1 ' Punch's Almanac,' 1901.
330 ROBERT BUCHANAN
fearless, inspired gaze into the meshes of the
veil that hides the future. In her hand the staff
of Faith and the lamp of Science. No longer
do we espy an allegory of twin souls, Reason
and Faith; Reason with his eyes fixed to the
'solid ground of nature,' groping, in the shadows,
his uneven way with difficulty to Truth ; and
Faith with eyes to heaven, sailing in the full
light of inspiration, unchecked to the Sungates.
Faith and Reason now unite in the spirit of
Imaginative Science, in the ideal of the aspiring
Searcher after Wisdom. In the Ideal figure we
see personified Imagination guided by Reason,
Prophecy lighted by Science. This is what the
Nineteenth bequeaths to the Twentieth Century.
Hereafter, Superstition must creep warily and
be an outcast from the newer Heaven, and Sacer-
dotalism assume a lower grade in the temple of
human aspiration. For the construction of this
Ideal, which is to lead mankind to the brink of
the Celestial Ocean, Robert Buchanan has ever
been an impassioned advocate, appealing not with
the mere egoism of rhetoric, but with a yearning
desire to bring human hopes and aspiration to
a higher level than what to him appears to be
the parochialised methods of the Churches, and
the paralysing doctrines of mere materialism.
In the gradual reconstruction of human hopes
and human ideals, parochial truths will fade, yet
flicker on for a while, whilst Eternal Truth will
flash up anew to guide nations in the process of
time to the basis of a common ideal and a common
MR. BUCHANAN'S SIGNIFICANCE 331
religion. The methods that shall assist in the
embodiment of this ideal and this religion will
differ widely, and may continue to be the ground
of strife and dissension, yet in the evolutionary
process the teaching of Jesus will gain new life
and a new significance, whilst Christian theology
will lose its supremity and its vitality. The
tendency will be to combine the essential truths
of all great ethical systems, and in the attainment
of that combination the process of the survival of
the fittest will continue to have its legal sway. Not
for the first time shall Jewish, Greek, Roman, and
Hindu thought meet on the banks of the Jordan.
With a tenderer reconciliation in view shall the
priests of the newer gods rouse from their slumber
their older brethren. No longer shall Christ walk
in the wilderness, where despair, melancholy, and
gloom dwell, but in the purified groves of Pan ;
and at the gateway of the new heaven Apollo,
Prometheus, Balder, Bhudda shall sing with the
Nazarene a new song of Hope. That song may
sound clearer in the East than in the West, in that
Far East, perhaps, where a young nation is
springing eagerly forward to grasp and use what
is best in the garden and storehouse of the world.
Yet clear against the sky of human endeavour
shall be written that sign which Mr. Buchanan
discerned so clearly in his later days : ' The Law
of God is never broken.' With that Truth impress-
ing itself upon human reason and human imagina-
tion, no man, however inspired, will attempt to
break or suspend that Law.
332 ROBERT BUCHANAN
With the dead century the pen of the poet is
laid aside. Ending as he began, he takes his final
steps towards the brink of the Valley of the Dark
Shadow, with few of his contemporaries to give
him the grand hailing sign of sympathy. But the
militant poet has had the last bay leaf snatched
from his brow, and hereafter must begin to take
an assured place amongst the poets that he loved
of English race. The present writer, standing as
he does by training, by instinct, and in the general
conduct of life, at nearly opposite poles to Mr.
Buchanan, lays this introduction to his poetry
with affection at the side of his bed of sickness,
with the hope that it may serve to reveal to many
a new aspect of a man who is known to them only
as a novelist, playwright, and publicist, believing
that a sympathetic study of the poet will light at
least one new fire in the temple of human aspira-
tion, and add one more interpreter for the mystic
language of the human heart.
For lo ! I voice to you a mystic thing-
Whose darkness is as full of starry gleams
As is a tropic light ; in your dreams
This thing shall haunt you and become a sound
Of friendship in still places, and around
Your lives this thing shall deepen and impart
A music to the trouble of the heart,
So that perchance, upon some gracious day,
You may bethink you of the song and pray
That God may bless the singer for your sake !
Solemn before the poet, as before all of us, is veiled
the dark portal, and until that is passed, we know
not if all the glory and the dream of the poet
be merely the rainbows of his sorrow, or * whether
MR. BUCHANAN'S SIGNIFICANCE 333
in some more mystic condition the Gods sweep
past in thunder,' and if the Immortals are remem-
bering all the melodies and the ideals that we on
earth have forgot, and are plucking again the
living bloom from the rose-trees of life's Maytime.
Though that riddle of the gods cannot be answered
by Seer or by Dreamer-
Yet shall the River of Life wander and wander and wander,
Yet shall the Trumpet of Time sound from the Sungates up yonder,
Yet shall the fabled Sphinx brood on the mystic To-morrow,
While newer Cities arise, on the dust that is scatter'd in sorrow !
Printed by T. and A. Constable, (late) Printers to Her Majesty
at the Edinburgh University Press
Non Crux sed Lux.'
Cloth. Crown Zvo. 6s.
THE STRUGGLE FOR SUCCESS
A Study in Social Compromise, Expediency
and Adaptability
By ARCHIBALD STODART-WALKER,
M.A., M.D., CM., F.R.C.P., etc.
SOME PRESS NOTrCES
' A series of discourses on questions of the profoundest interest. . . . He
has conceived a view of life characterised alike by broad sympathies and
practical wisdom, and set it forth with courage and brilliancy.' — The
Scotsman.
' An able and suggestive book. . . . Mr. Stodart-Walker has a calnn
and detached mind.' — Illustrated London News (Mr. L. F. Austin).
' Decidedly racy, vigorous, unconventional, outspoken, and original.' —
British Weekly (Dr. Robertson Nicol).
' A mass of common-sense. . . . It is good for people occasionally to see
some one leaping over the forbidden pale with a thoroughly human and
non-academic manner. . . . He is splendidly lucid.'— Daily Chronicle.
' Exceedingly able, clever, and interesting. ... A great deal of fresh
thinking, of the wisdom of experience, and of lively writing. The author
is a genuine humorist.' — Glasgow Herald.
' His book is written as an appeal to thinking men and women, so that
he neither blinks facts nor tends to the cultivation of priggishness. ... A
real service to many readers in showing them things as they are. Well
conceived, well intentioned, well carried out, and deserves long to enjoy a
popular position.' — Literary World.
' Full of good matter.' — Manchester Guardian.
' Its strong point is undoubtedly the genuine eloquence of its best
passages. . . . The description of the man who is mentally sane is
admirable.' — The Lancet.
' A really striking grasp of some of the most burning questions of the
day.'— British Medical JoumaL
'Worked out with admirable skill, not following blindly one school of
thought, but with a welcome impartiality selecting what he considers best
from each, and welding them into a presentable and sane method of
regarding man in his relations to society. . . . Strikingly lucid, intensely
interesting, full of a broad tolerance and keen logic, and practical enough
to merit the study of every one." — North British Daily Mail
' Of the result of a neglect of all self-inhibition (control), Mr. Stodart-
Walker draws an admirable word-picture.' — Weekly Register.
STRUGGLE FOR SUCCESS : PRESS NOTICES— Continued.
' Every chapter is interesting. ' — Graphic.
' Will be found very readable even by those who disagree with him.
. . . Determined to shut his eyes to nothing and make the best of every-
thing.'— Morning Leader.
' An invitation to think.'— Standard.
' As an exposition of the . . . common-sense point of view Mr. Stodart-
Walker's brilliantly and racily-written book is probably unrivalled.' —
Western Morning News.
' We welcome this attempt to lay bare the mass of fallacy and incon-
sistency upon which the social fabric is reared.'— Irish Times.
' Mr. Stodart-Walker has succeeded in clothing the dry skeleton of
science with the flesh and blood of popularity. He has read widely and
remembered accurately, and is able to lead the least scientific of us
through pleasant by-ways, whilst the book will add not a few original
ideas to a subject of the most engrossing interest. . . . Broad-minded,
reasonable, sound, caustic.'— Black and White.
' This remarkable volume, . . . suggestive and stimulating, the result
and outcome of much thinking. As a contribution to the discussion of
evolutionary ethics the work has its value. He ought at least to set minds
in motion.'— Aberdeen Free Press.
' Upon the topic of marriage — eloquent and extremely up to date. An
entertaining and improving book.' — The Pilot.
' Argued out with great skill and a wide range of knowledge. On the
physical side Mr. Stodart-Walker's position is exceedingly strong.'—
Liverpool Mercury.
' For a sane, manly, sincere, and well-informed inquiry into the general
laws governing civilisation, commend us to T/ie Struggle for Success — a
wise and thoughtful disquisition into the nature of great principles.' —
Sydney Morning Herald.
' The conclusions are reached by process of sound reasoning from the
viewpoint of those who live in the world and of it.'— Sydney Daily
Telegraph.
' A most valuable book, written according to the rules of logic, and
with a true knowledge of physiological and physical science, and an
exceptional insight into psychological processes. Dr. Stodart-Walker is
a sociologist, and he writes of things as they are, and as they ought to be,
and as they might easily be. Its value is immensely enhanced by the fact
that although it is scientific in the best sense of the word, although it is a
philosophical treatise, its style is so simple, so direct, and so eminently
readable, that the book should certainly have a popular success.'—
Birmingham Gazette.
' The thoughts of an eminent scientific purist. His qualifications for
the franchise constitute a magnificent ideal.'— The Speaker.
'An honest thinker— a neo-pagan.'— Sheffield Telegraph.
Demy 8vo. Cloth, js. 6d. net.
RECTORIAL ADDRESSES
DELIVERED BEFORE
THE UNIVERSITY OF EDINBURGH, 1859-1899
Edited, with an Introduction
By ARCHIBALD STODART-WALKER
President of the Union, 1891
* The addresses are not of topical or ephemeral interest,
but solid and lasting contributions to subjects that " abide our
questionings " through the ages, and their collection is a service
rendered to high-class literature.' — Saturday Review.
' A volume of momentous deliverances.' — Outlook.
'These addresses are great occasions, and many uncon-
nected with the University will be glad to have them in book
form.' — Literary World.
' A happy thought happily carried out. . . . None of them
are unworthy of preservation.' — Globe.
' These addresses were well worth rescuing from the dusty
files of old newspapers.' — Daily News.
'The most noteworthy is that of Carlyle, which may be
regarded as a compendium of his philosophy. . . . Perhaps
the good example set by Edinburgh in the publication of
these addresses will be followed by the other Universities.' —
Aberdeen Free Press,
Y
RECTORIAL ADDRESSES : PRESS liOTlCES—Contzftued.
'Addresses by some of the most eminent men of the last
half-century. The high standard of literary excellence main-
tained throughout.' — Birmingham Gazette.
'The addresses are as well worth reading to-day as they
were worth hearing at the time of delivery.' — Birmingham
Daily Post.
' Mr. Stodart-Walker has prefaced the volume with an ably-
written introduction, giving some account of the ofifice held
in succession by so many men of the highest distinction, and
embodying some shrewd appreciations of the various addresses
and of their respective authors.' — The World.
' Mr. Stodart-Walker's sketch of Carlyle on the rectorial
platform is especially interesting.' — Liverpool Mercury.
' A very happy idea — all interesting from various points of
view, and many of them of great and permanent worth.' — Great
Thoughts.
'Full of literary charm.' — Manchester Guardian.
' Its chief charm is that those who have contributed to it
have left the questions that in the eye of the world have
appeared to engross them most, and brought forth from more
intimate treasure-houses the fruits of wise reflection on subjects
of the widest human interest. There is in them all a strong
individual note.' — Scotsman.
London: GRANT RICHARDS, 9 Henrietta Street, W.C.
THE SELECTED POEMS OF
JOHN STUART BLACKIE
Edited, with an Appreciation
By his Nephew
ARCHIBALD STODART-WALKER.
' This book will abide for the sake of its appreciation. As
we see him here, Blackie was above all things a man. There
is wisdom enough in this volume for most of the work of life.'
— Daily News.
'A charming portrait of Professor Blackie. Mr. Stodart-
Walker has done his work extremely well.' — Illustrated London
News.
' If it were for his ballads, legends, and narrative poems
alone, the verses of Professor Blackie must always be prized.
Mr. Walker's appreciation is carefully drawn, and judiciously
and temperately balanced.' — Pall Mall Gazette.
'Very often, and with no erring hand, Blackie struck the
note that reaches the heart. The voice of Nature spoke
through him free and untutored . . . always and without ex-
ception its utterance was vigorous and sincere. Mr. Stodart-
Walker's introduction is admirably felt and well expressed.' —
Arthur WauGH, in Daily courier.
'Than the "Appreciation" no finer estimate of Professor
Blackie's character and of his influence upon the world of
letters has been penned.' — Dundee Courier.
'An introduction delightful to read. . . . The book contains
the best specimens.' — Scotsman,
SELECTED POEMS : PRESS NOTICES— Contittued.
' Will serve as the standard volume of the gifted Professor's
poetical works as distinguished from his translation.' — Aberdeen
Free Press.
' Mr. Walker has done his work well and conscientiously. . . .
In the appreciation we see one more instance of the remark-
able magnetism of the late Professor.' — North British Daily Mail.
*An appreciation worthy of the book, which is the highest
compliment any one could pay Mr. Stodart- Walker.' — York-
shire Post.
' Many of these poems will be preserved among Scottish
classics.' — Weekly Dispatch.
' A charming appreciation.' — Lady's Pictorial.
This book is
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