Complete Fictional Works of John Buchan (Illustrated), page 810
Where Abana sings to the sea,
In a myriad embraces enfolden —
All. Hush!
Sir P. Zimmern. I shall live as the harts on the lee.
Then kisses shall welcome the noon-tide,
Soft kisses that shudder and cling,
And rapture shall waken the moon-tide —
All (very emphatically). Hush!!
Sir P. Zimmern (trying a new metre):
Foot of fawn in the greenwood
Shall be less fleet than me.
Wind of mom in the treetops
Shall be less free.
Myriad maids shall attend me,
And love me well —
Sir G. Craik (speaking with emotion). Hell!
Sir Robert Brand. A Banker I, a member of the house
Founded long since by sainted Lazarus,
Who made a scoop and piled a goodly hoard
Out of crumbs that fell from Dives’ board.
I love not Eastern fervours nor the sham
Gold of the Christian Scientist. I damn
All sort of metaphysics, bad or good.
They spoil my sleep and put me off my food.
Give me hard facts and honest figures — then
I can talk plainly as to business men.
This problem now before us — I admit
Its gravity, and seek to bring to it
A sober City judgment, fair and free,
And find its answer in the rule of three.
At such a moment, so it seems to me,
Our single quest must be economy,
Else for the war we cannot pay the score
Without our credit sinking through the floor.
And ‘tis by credit, be it understood,
My firm doth earn its meagre livelihood.
But mark, economy is not more meet
For spendthrift blades that house in Downing Street,
And rob the public coffers, than for him
Who lives in rentier’s life, or in the dim
Twilight of modest earnings, such as Zim.
From Balham’s humble roof to Chatsworth’s dome,
Economy must permeate the home.
Now ever since old Lot from Sodom’s pales
Fled to a sanctuary in Edom’s vales,
Man has had woman hanging to his tails.
Nor, like the patriarch, can he her exalt
Into a pillar of good kitchen salt.
Statistics just compiled by Mr Bangs
Show that around the average neck there hangs
A female millstone — nay, not less than five,
Whom he must house and clothe and keep alive;
Remote and impecunious relatives,
Cousins and aunts and grandmothers and wives,
Cooks, housemaids, scullions, typewriters galore,
And secretaries — Heaven knows how many more.
It is our duty, and we do not shrink,
But at this hour, with England on the brink
Of economic crisis, let’s be sure
We guiltless are of vain expenditure.
Each female separate household is a call
And drain upon our dwindling capital,
Which would be remedied if we but got
Under one single rooftree all the lot.
In rates and lighting, breakages and rent,
Each man would save, I reckon, nine per cent.
And since they will not come unless they’re wed,
The let us marry ‘em, and no more be said.
Simple my plea: Let us forthwith convey
Our females into hotchpot, as they say.
I shall a building presently prepare
In the vicinity of Cambridge Square,
With all amenities of light and air,
Where I propose my various wives to pen,
Fitted for eight, and at a pinch for ten.
They shall be stayed with apples, round and red,
And inexpensive fruits, and Standard Bread.
So shall I aid the general Uplift.
Polygamy, you say: I call it thrift.
And if the Hirsts and Paishes me revile,
I answer, with a slow and secret smile
Like Monna Lisa’s: “In this way alone
I can assist the Government with their loan,
And at my country’s enemies heave a stone.”
Sir Edward Grigg. I’m sorry to look like a prig,
But since I a soldier became,
My notions have changed with my rig,
They could scarcely continue the same.
I am all for espousing a dame
When I’m weary of battles and swords,
But Polygamy is not in the game —
It’s simply not done in the Guards.
It’s true that our hearts they are big,
That our bosoms are swift to inflame;
That our fancies, like birds on a twig,
Few maidens are able to tame;
That Beauty — for such is our fame —
Must yield to our eyes and our words;
But Polygamy — oh, no, for shame!
It’s simply not done in the Guards.
Our men sometimes drink like a pig,
And their morals are halting and lame;
For certain, their views are not Whig,
And celibacy is not their aim.
There is much that a censor might blame
Wine, women, and horses and cards;
But Polygamy — perish the name!
It’s simply not done in the Guards.
Envoi.
Dear Prophet, I don’t care a fig
For your Uplift and future rewards.
As a friend I give warning, you twig,
It’s simply not done in the Guards.
Sir Lionel Hichens. I deprecate the unseemly levity
Of the last knight as fitter for a free
And ill-conducted pot-house than for us,
Whose pride is to be deadly serious.
Yet with his ill-put thesis I agree;
A suave decorum must our métier be,
Standing as exemplar, on my advice,
Of all that is not only good, but nice.
From a full heart I speak. This very day
I’ve held three thousand miscreants in play.
The vile mechanic scum by Mersey’s waves
Decline alike to Britons be — or slaves.
An addle-pated Government blinks the truth;
Nor succour can I get from George or Booth.
A single workman is a decent soul;
I know his thoughts, and like him on the whole;
But multiply him by a thousand — then
You find you’re met by mountebanks, not men.
A crowd’s mentality does not represent
An adding of the units component.
In kind ‘tis different and ‘tis vastly bad;
A man’s a gentleman, a mob’s a cad.
Wherefore with all the unction I command
I plead for singleness in marriage bond.
Your plural wives will quickly organise
Into a Union with paid secretaries.
No more a little coaxing, a caress,
An opera box, perhaps a Paris dress,
Will mend connubial tiffs. Their Union rules
Will make the best of women act like fools;
Strikes there will be, and endless arguing.
Marriage no more will be a silken string,
But a great hempen cable: one rash word
Will loose upon you an embattled horde.
Ah! how my fancy paints the wretched man
Trimming and truckling to each harridan,
His front door picketed, should he fail to stoop,
And all his comforts fairly in the soup.
I am a man of deeds, not words. Be led
By my wise counsel. What I have said, I’ve said.
Sir George Craik (corrugating his forehead).
Prophet of Prophets, known of old,
Master of all who strive and seek,
Beneath whose awful eye we hold
Our solemn conclaves week by week,
And con the Imperial alphabet,
Lest we forget, lest we forget.
The tumult and the shouting die;
Bob is already fast asleep,
And only Zimmern’s eerie cry
Stirs Philip from his brooding deep.
Grigg strokes his lip’s incipient hair,
In case it’s there, in case it’s there.
I’m a policeman, blunt and plain;
Likewise a soldier and a Scot;
And so I say with might and main,
What seems to be by all forgot:
This whole discussion’s nought but fun,
It can’t be done, it can’t be done.
Your airy projects well may suit
Some lesser breed without the Law;
Some dusky Polynesian moot,
Or high-browed youths in Arkansaw.
But Englishmen are Christians yet,
So don’t forget, so don’t forget.
High in our ancient legal brass
‘Tis writ that man may have one mate;
And he who would that rule o’erpass
Is courting trouble, sure as fate;
For were he hero, sage, or god,
He’d go to quod, he’d go to quod.
Now prophets since the world began
Have had their sorrows and have thriven;
The Senate’s curse, the Church’s ban,
Have opened them the gate to Heaven.
Stonings and scourgings, pain and shame,
Have helped their fame, have helped their fame.
But there was never prophet bom
Who could appear before the beaks
For bigamy, and bear the scorn
With which they gave him thirty weeks.
The loftiest fame these weeks would kill
In Pentonville, in Pentonville.
Wherefore I bid you cast behind
Your fantasies of pen and tongue,
And rather fix your roving mind
On Roosevelt, than on Brigham Young.
Go home, and after this carouse
Peruse “The Angel in the House.”
The South Countrie
1916
I never likit the Kingdom o’ Fife —
Its kail’s as cauld as its wind and rain,
And the folk that bide benorth o’ the Clyde
They speak a langwidge that’s no my ain.
Doun in the west is a clarty nest,
And the big stane cities are no for me;
Sae I’ll buckle my pack on my auld bent back
And tak the road for the South Countrie.
Whaur sail I enter the Promised Land,
Ower the Sutra or doun the Lyne,
Up the side o’ the water o’ Clyde
Or cross the muirs at the heid o’Tyne,
Or staucherin’ on by Crawfordjohn
Yont to the glens whaur Tweed rins wee? —
It’s maitter sma’ whaur your road may fa’
Gin it land ye safe in the South Countrie.
You are the hills that my hert kens weel,
Hame for the weary, rest for the auld,
Braid and high as the Aprile sky,
Blue on the taps and green i’ the fauld:
At ilka turn a bit wanderin’ burn,
And a canty biggin’ on ilka lea —
There’s nocht sae braw in the wide world’s schaw
As the heughs and holms o’ the South Countrie.
You are the lads that my hert loes weel,
Frank and couthy and kind to a’,
Wi’ the open broo and the mirthfu’ mou’
And the open door at the e’enin’s fa’;
A trig hamesteid and a lauchin’ breed
O’ weans that hearten the auld to see —
Sma’ or great, can ye find the mate
O’ the folk that bide in the South Countrie?
The lichtist fit that traivels the roads
Maun lag and drag as the end grows near;
Threescore and ten are the years o’ men,
And I’m bye the bit by a lang lang year.
Sae I’ll seek my rest in the land loe’d best,
And ask nae mair than that God shall gie
To my failin’ een for the hinmost scene
The gentle hills o’ the South Countrie.
The Kirn
1916
‘Twas last back-end that me and Dauvit Sma’
And Robert Todd, the herd at Meldonha’,
The hairst weel ower and under rape and thack,
Set oot to keep the kirn at Haytounslack,
Wat Laidlaw’s fairm — for Wat’s the rale stench breed
The borders kenned afore the auld lairds dee’d,
And a’ the soor-milk Wast ran doun the Tweed.
We werna half the road, nor bye the grain
Whaur auncient Druids left the standin’ stane,
When Gidden Scott cam heinchin’ ower the muir,
Gidden the wale o’ men; ilk kirn and fair,
Clippen’ and spainin’, was a cheerier place
For ae sicht o’ his honest bawsened face.
He was a drover, famed frae Clyde to Spey,
The graundest juidge o’ beasts — a dealer tae.
His furthy coat o’ tup’s ‘oo spun at hame,
His weel-worn maud that buckled roond his wame,
His snootit kep that hid the broos aneath,
His buits wi’ tackets like a harrow’s teeth,
His shairny leggin’s and his michty staff
Proclaimed him for a drover three mile aff.
“Losh! lads,” he cried, “whaur are traivellin’ noo,
Trig as the lassies decked for them they loe?
Is’t to a countra splore, or to the toun
Whaur creeshy baillies to their feasts sit doun?
Or is’t some waddin’ wi’ its pipes and reels
That gars the chuckies loup ahint your heels?”
“Weel met,” says I. “The day our jaunt we mak
To join Wat Laidlaw’s kirn at Haystounslack.
Lang is the gait, and, sin’ it’s pairtly yours,
What say ye to a sang to wile the ‘oors?
In a’ the land frae Wigtoun to the Mearns
There’s nane that ploos sae straucht the rig o’ Bums
As your guid sel’ (so rins the countra sough);
And I, though frae sic genious far eneuch,
I, tae, hae clinkit rhymes at orra whiles.
We’ll niffer sangs to pass the muirland miles.”
“Na, Jock,” says he, and wagged a sarious pow,
“Sma’ share hae I in that divinest lowe.
A roopy craw as weel a pairt micht claim
I’ the laverock’s sang as me in Robin’s fame.
But sin’ we’re a’ guid freends, I’ll sing a sang
I made last Monday drovin’ ower the Whang.”
Gidden’s Song
Sin’ Andra took the jee and gaed aff across the sea
I’m as dowff as ony fisher-wife that watches on the sand,
I’m as restless as a staig, me that aince was like a craig,
When I think upon yon far frem’t land.
We had a cuisten oot, I mindna what aboot;
We had feucht a bit and flytit and gien and taen the blow;
But oor dander was nae mair than the rouk in simmer air,
For I loe’d him as a lassie loes her joe.
He had sic a couthy way, aye sae canty and sae gay;
He garred a body’s hert loup up and kept the warld gaun roun’;
The dreichest saul could see he had sunlicht in his ee,
And there’s no his marrow left in the toun.
We were ‘greed like twae stirks that feed amang the birks,
My every thocht I shared wi’ him, his hinmost plack was mine;
We had nocht to hide frae ither, he was mair to me than brither;
But that’s a bye wi’t langsyne.
As I gang oot and in, in my heid there rins a tune,
Some tune o’Andra’s playin’ in the happy days that’s gane.
When I sit at festive scene there’s a mist comes ower my een
For the kind lad that’s left me my lane.
So Gidden spak, and ower the lave o’ us cam
A sadness waur than penitential psalm.
The tune was cried; nae jovial rantin’ stave
Wad set a mood sae pensive and sae grave.
Sae, followin’ on, I cleared my hass and sung
A sang I made langsyne when I was young.
Jock’s Song
Sing, lads, and bend the bicker; gloamin’draps
On Winston side.
A’ ye that dwal in sicht o’ Tintock’s taps
Frae Tweed to Clyde
Gae stert your reels and ding the warlock Care
At yourtg bluid’s call
The wind that blaws frae y ont the mountain muir
Will steal my saul.
Mind ye the lass that used to bide langsyne
At Coulter-fit?
(Gae pipe your sprigs, for youth is ill to bin’
And pleesures flit.)
Her mither keep’t the inn, and doun the stair
A’ day wad bawl.
The wind that blaws frae y ont the mountain muir
Will steal my saul.
My heid rins round — I think they ca’d her Jean.
She looked sae high,
She walked sae prood, it micht hae been the Queen
As she gaed bye,
Buskit sae trig, and ower her yellow hair
A denty shawl.
The wind that blaws frae yont the mountain muir
Will steal my saul.
Ae day the King himsel’ was ridin’ through
And saw her face.
He telled his son, “For ae kiss o’ her mou
I’d change my place
Wi’ ony gangrel, roup my royal share,
My kingly hall.”
That wind that blaws frae yont the mountain muir
