Andrew Lang

“ Far from the firths of the East, and the racing tides of the West,
Sleeps in the sight and the sound of the infinite Southern Sea,
Weary and well content in his grave on the Vaëa crest.
Tusitala, the lover of children, the teller of tales,
Giver of counsel and dreams, a wonder, a world’s delight,
Looks o’er the labours of men in the plain and the hill ”

“ Who weigh each gift the world can give,
And sigh and murmur, What’s the odds
So long’s you’re happy? Nay, what Man
Finds Happiness since Time began?
p. 82Ode of Jubilee. By A. C. S.
Me, that have sung and shrieked, and foamed in praise of Freedom,
Me do you ask to sing
Parochial pomps, and waste, the wail of Jubileedom
For Queen, or Prince, or King!
* * * * *
Nay, by the foam that fleeting oars have feathered,
In Grecian seas;
Nay, by the winds that barques Athenian weathered—
By all of these
I bid you each be mute, Bards tamed and tethered,
And fee’d with fees! ”

“ The low light wanes and waxes, flowers and fades,
And sleep is sweet, and dreams suffice for me;
“Go back, and seek the sunlight,” as of old,
The wise ghost-mother of Odysseus said,
Here am I half content, and scarce a-cold,
But one light fits the living, one the dead ”

“ To bloom for a day’s delight.
Lost is the star in the night,
And the Rose of a day’s delight
Fled “where the roses go”:
But the fragrance and light from afar,
Born of the Rose and the Star,
Breathe o’er the years and the snow.
p. 15The Tenth of June, 1715.
(Being a Song writ for a lady born on June 10th, the birthday of his Most Sacred Majesty King James III. and VIII.)
Day of the King and the flower! ”

“ When Life comes to his own again,”—
over the water that divides us from the voices and faces of our desires and dreams.
p. viOf the ballads, The Young Ruthven and The Queen of Spain were written in competition with the street minstrels of the close of the sixteenth century. The legend on which The Young Ruthven is based is well known; The Queen of Spain is the story of the Florencia, a ship of the Spanish Armada, wrecked in Tobermory Bay, as it was told to me by a mariner in the Sound of Mull. ”

“ Had the Amazonian Queen
Seen thee ’midst thy maiden peers,
Thou the Coronel hadst been
Of that lady’s Grenadiers;
Troy had never mourned her fall,
With thine axe to guard her wall.
As Penthesilea brave
Is the maiden (in her dreams) ;
Ilium she well might save,
Though Achilles’ armour gleams,
’Midst the Greeks; all vain it is,
’Gainst the glance of Salmacis!
p. 75JUBILEE POEMS
BY BARDS WHO WERE SILENT p. 77What Francesco said of the Jubilee. By R. B.
What if we call it fifty years! ’Tis steep!
To climb so high a gradient? Prate of Guides?
Are we not roped? The Danger? ”

“ We stooped to the moorland and plucked the pale heather
That blooms where the hope of the Stuart was sped.
And a whisper awoke on the wilderness, sighing,
Like the voice of the heroes who battled in vain,
“Not for Tearlach alone the red claymore was plying,
But to bring back the old life that comes not again.”
p. 25The Last of the Leal. December 31, 1787.
Here’s a health to every man
Bore the brunt of wind and weather ”

“ I trust that he may not “live to rue the day,” like Keith of Craigentolly in the ballad.
The “Loyal Lyrics” on Charles and James and the White Rose must not be understood as implying a rebellious desire for the subversion of the present illustrious dynasty. ”

“ And she sleeps where there’s never nane shall waken,
Where the glen lies a’ in wrack, wi’ the houses toom and black,
And her father’s ha’s forsaken.
p. 20While there’s heather on the hill shall my vengeance ne’er be still,
While a bush hides the glint o’ a gun, lad ”

“ Sad world in which we’re born,
And things will “go contrairy”
With Martin and with Mary:
And every day the real
Comes bleakly in with morn,
And cigarettes have ashes,
And every rose a thorn.
p. 53Matrimony.
(Matrimony—Advertiser would like to hear from well-educated Protestant lady, under thirty, fair, with view to above, who would have no objection to work Remington type-writer, at home. Enclose photo. T. 99. This Office. Cork newspaper.) ”

“ In Keith of Craigentolly the family and territorial names of the hero or villain are purposely altered, so as to avoid injuring susceptibilities and arousing unavailing regrets.
p. viiCONTENTS p. 1DEDICATORY p. 3In Augustinum Dobson. Jam Rude Donatum. ”