Andrew Lang - Ban and Arriere Ban - A Rally of Fugitive Rhymes

So for lang years three did they sweep the sea, but a closer watch was set,
Till nae food had they, but twa ounce a day o’ meal was the maist they’d get.
And men fight but tame on an empty wame, so they sent a flag o’ truce,
And blithe were the Privy Council then, when the Whigs had heard that news.
Twa Lords they sent wi’ a strang intent to be dour on each Cavalier,
But wi’ French cakes fine, and his last drap o’ wine, did Middleton make them cheer,
On the muzzles o’ guns he put coats and caps, and he set them aboot the wa’s,
And the Whigs thocht then he had food and men to stand for the Rightfu’ Cause.
So he got a’ he craved, and his men were saved, and nane might say them nay,
Wi’ sword by side, and flag o’ pride, free men might they gang their way,
They might fare to France, they might bide at hame, and the better their grace to buy,
Wullie Wanbeard’s purse maun pay the keep o’ the men that did him defy!

Men never hae gotten sic terms o’ peace since first men went to war,
As got Halyburton, and Middleton, and Roy, and the young Dunbar.
Sae I drink to ye here, To the Young Chevalier ! I hae said ye an auld man’s say,
And there may hae been mightier deeds of arms, but there never was nane sae gay!

Beautiful face of a child,
Lighted with laughter and glee,
Mirthful, and tender, and wild,
My heart is heavy for thee!

Beautiful face of a youth,
As an eagle poised to fly forth,
To the old land loyal of truth,
To the hills and the sounds of the North:
Fair face, daring and proud,
Lo! the shadow of doom, even now,
The fate of thy line, like a cloud,
Rests on the grace of thy brow!

Cruel and angry face,
Hateful and heavy with wine,
Where are the gladness, the grace,
The beauty, the mirth that were thine?

Ah, my Prince, it were well, —
Hadst thou to the gods been dear, —
To have fallen where Keppoch fell,
With the war-pipe loud in thine ear!
To have died with never a stain
On the fair White Rose of Renown,
To have fallen, fighting in vain,
For thy father, thy faith, and thy crown!
More than thy marble pile,
With its women weeping for thee,
Were to dream in thine ancient isle,
To the endless dirge of the sea!
But the Fates deemed otherwise,
Far thou sleepest from home,
From the tears of the Northern skies,
In the secular dust of Rome.

A city of death and the dead,
But thither a pilgrim came,
Wearing on weary head
The crowns of years and fame:
Little the Lucrine lake
Or Tivoli said to him,
Scarce did the memories wake
Of the far-off years and dim.
For he stood by Avernus’ shore,
But he dreamed of a Northern glen
And he murmured, over and o’er,
‘ For Charlie and his men :’
And his feet, to death that went,
Crept forth to St. Peter’s shrine,
And the latest Minstrel bent
O’er the last of the Stuart line.

The Paradise they bid us fast to win
Hath Wine and Women; is it then a sin
To live as we shall live in Paradise,
And make a Heaven of Earth, ere Heaven begin?

The wise may search the world from end to end,
From dusty nook to dusty nook, my friend,
And nothing better find than girls and wine,
Of all the things they neither make nor mend.

Nay, listen thou who, walking on Life’s way,
Hast seen no lovelock of thy love’s grow grey
Listen, and love thy life, and let the Wheel
Of Heaven go spinning its own wilful way.

Man is a flagon, and his soul the wine,
Man is a lamp, wherein the Soul doth shine,
Man is a shaken reed, wherein that wind,
The Soul, doth ever rustle and repine.

Each morn I say, to-night I will repent,
Repent! and each night go the way I went —
The way of Wine; but now that reigns the rose,
Lord of Repentance, rage not, but relent.

I wish to drink of wine – so deep, so deep —
The scent of wine my sepulchre shall steep,
And they, the revellers by Omar’s tomb,
Shall breathe it, and in Wine shall fall asleep.

Before the rent walls of a ruined town
Lay the King’s skull, whereby a bird flew down
‘And where,’ he sang, ‘is all thy clash of arms?
Where the sonorous trumps of thy renown?’

He sat among the woods, he heard
The sylvan merriment: he saw
The pranks of butterfly and bird,
The humours of the ape, the daw.

And in the lion or the frog —
In all the life of moor and fen,
In ass and peacock, stork and dog,
He read similitudes of men.

‘Of these, from those,’ he cried, ‘we come,
Our hearts, our brains descend from these.’
And lo! the Beasts no more were dumb,
But answered out of brakes and trees:

‘Not ours,’ they cried; ‘Degenerate,
If ours at all,’ they cried again,
‘Ye fools, who war with God and Fate,
Who strive and toil: strange race of men.

‘For we are neither bond nor free,
For we have neither slaves nor kings,
But near to Nature’s heart are we,
And conscious of her secret things.

‘Content are we to fall asleep,
And well content to wake no more,
We do not laugh, we do not weep,
Nor look behind us and before;

‘But were there cause for moan or mirth,
’Tis we , not you, should sigh or scorn,
Oh, latest children of the Earth,
Most childish children Earth has borne.’

They spoke, but that misshapen slave
Told never of the thing he heard,
And unto men their portraits gave,
In likenesses of beast and bird!

This morning I vowed I would bring thee my Roses,
They were thrust in the band that my bodice encloses,
But the breast-knots were broken, the Roses went free.
The breast-knots were broken; the Roses together
Floated forth on the wings of the wind and the weather,
And they drifted afar down the streams of the sea.

And the sea was as red as when sunset uncloses,
But my raiment is sweet from the scent of the Roses,
Thou shalt know, Love, how fragrant a memory can be.

In front he saw the donjon tall
Deep in the woods, and stayed to scan
The guards that slept along the wall,
Or dozed upon the bartizan.
He marked the drowsy flag that hung
Unwaved by wind, unfrayed by shower,
He listened to the birds that sung
Go forth and win the haunted tower !
The tangled brake made way for him,
The twisted brambles bent aside;
And lo, he pierced the forest dim,
And lo, he won the fairy bride!
For he was young, but ah! we find,
All we, whose beards are flecked with grey,
Our fairy castle’s far behind,
We watch it from the darkling way:
’Twas ours, that palace, in our youth,
We revelled there in happy cheer:
Who scarce dare visit now in sooth,
Le Vieux Château de Souvenir!
For not the boughs of forest green
Begird that castle far away,
There is a mist where we have been
That weeps about it, cold and grey.
And if we seek to travel back
’Tis through a thicket dim and sere,
With many a grave beside the track,
And many a haunting form of fear.
Dead leaves are wet among the moss,
With weed and thistle overgrown —
A ruined barge within the fosse,
A castle built of crumbling stone!
The drawbridge drops from rusty chains,
There comes no challenge from the hold;
No squire, nor dame, nor knight remains,
Of all who dwelt with us of old.
And there is silence in the hall
No sound of songs, no ray of fire;
But gloom where all was glad, and all
Is darkened with a vain desire.
And every picture’s fading fast,
Of fair Jehanne, or Cydalise.
Lo, the white shadows hurrying past,
Below the boughs of dripping trees!