POEMS SCOTS AND ENGLISH

BY JOHN BUCHAN

T. C. & E. C. JACK, LIMITED LONDON AND EDINBURGH 1917

Printed in Great Britain by Turnbull & Spears, Edinburgh

TO MY BROTHER ALASTAIR BUCHAN LIEUTENANT, ROYAL SCOTS FUSILIERS WHO FELL AT ARRAS ON EASTER MONDAY 1917 UNDER HIS COUNTRY’S TRIUMPHING FLAG

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Since there are many variants of our northern speech, it seems fitting to say that the Scots pieces in this little collection are written in the vernacular which is spoken in the hill country of the Lowlands, from the Cheviots to Galloway. Scots has never been to me a book-tongue; I could always speak it more easily than I could write it; and I dare to hope that the faults of my verses, great as they are, are not those of an antiquarian exercise.

J. B.

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BOOK I SCOTS

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Midian’s Evil Day⁠[1]

(From Alexander Cargill, Elder of the Kirk of the Remnant in the vale of Wae, to the Reverend Murdo Mucklethraw, Minister of the aforesaid Kirk, anent the Great Case recently argued in the House of Lords.)

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1904

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The Herd of Farawa

Who in an April hailstorm discoursed to the traveller on the present discontents.

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1907

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The Eternal Feminine

1912

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The South Countrie

1916

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The Shorter Catechism

(With Proofs)

1911

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THEOCRITUS IN SCOTS

The Kirn⁠[5]

(Idyll vii)

Gidden’s Song

Jock’s Song

1916

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THEOCRITUS IN SCOTS

The Fishers

(Idyll xxi)

1916

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INTER ARMA

Sweet Argos

An Epistle from Jock in billets to Sandy in the trenches.

1916

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On Leave

1916

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The Kirk Bell

1917

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Home Thoughts from Abroad

1917

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Fragment of an Ode in Praise of the Royal Scots Fusiliers

1917

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The Great Ones

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1916

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Fisher Jamie

1916

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BOOK II ENGLISH

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Fratri Dilectissimo⁠[7]

W. H. B.

1912

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To Lionel Phillips⁠[8]

1909

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To Major-General The Hon. Sir Reginald Talbot, K.C.B.⁠[9]

1914

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From the Pentlands, Looking North and South

1898

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The Strong Man Armed

1895

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The Soldier of Fortune

1899

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The Singer

1898

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Processional⁠[10]

1906

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Avignon

1759

1911

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The Gipsy’s Song to the Lady Cassilis

“Whereupon the Faas, coming down from the Gates of Galloway, did so bewitch my lady that she forgat husband and kin, and followed the tinkler’s piping.”—Chap-book of the Raid of Cassilis.

1898

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Wood Magic

(9th Century)

1911

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The Song of the Sea Captain

Diego d’Alboquerque, brother of the great Affonso, a knight of the Portuguese Order of Jesus Christ, having landed on the coast north of Zanzibar, wandered to the Abyssinian highlands, where he saw and loved Prester John’s daughter, Melissa, a cousin of the Lady of Tripoli (la princesse lointaine). He was slain off Goa in the great fight with the Sultan of Muscat.

1905

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Antiphilus of Byzantium

Anth. Pal. ix. 546.

1895

{106}

An Echo of Meleager

1910

FOOTNOTES:

[1] The occasion of these verses requires a note. The union in 1900 of the Free Church of Scotland and the United Presbyterian Church led to the secession of certain congregations of the former, who called themselves the Free Church, and maintained that the union involved a departure from the principles of that church and a breach of the conditions under which certain properties were held. They brought an action to establish their right to these properties, as the sole remaining repository of Free Church principles. This action was decided against the claimants in the Scottish courts, but, on appeal, the House of Lords, under the guidance of Lord Halsbury (then Lord Chancellor), reversed the decision.

[2] Mr Henry Johnston, K.C., of the Scots Bar (afterwards Lord Johnston), led for the appellants.

[3] The leading counsel for the respondents was Mr R. B. Haldane (M.P. for East Lothian), afterwards Lord Chancellor of England.

[4] A famous Free Church divine of the old school.

[5] The Greek text has not been followed in the songs, as it would be hard to find equivalents for Lycidas and Simichidas in Lowland Scots. Jock’s song is a free paraphrase of Victor Hugo’s Guitare. How close that famous lyric is to the Theocritean manner will be admitted by those who remember Walter Headlam’s Greek version of it.

[6] The Lang Whang is the old Edinburgh-Lanark road.

[7] From “The Marquis of Montrose.”

[8] From “Prester John.”

[9] From “Salute to Adventurers.”

[10] From “A Lodge in the Wilderness.”