Part 1

Transcribed from the 1894 Longmans, Green and Co. edition by David Price, email ccx074@pglaf.org

Ban and Arrière Ban

A RALLY OF FUGITIVE RHYMES

BY ANDREW LANG

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LONDON LONGMANS, GREEN & CO. AND NEW YORK: 15 EAST 16TH STREET 1894

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Edinburgh: T. and A. Constable, Printers to Her Majesty

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TO ELEANOR CHARLOTTE SELLAR

‘Ban and Arrière Ban!’ a host Broken, beaten, all unled, They return as doth a ghost From the dead.

Sad or glad my rallied rhymes, Sought our dusty papers through, For the sake of other times Come to you.

Times and places new we know, Faces fresh and seasons strange But the friends of long ago Do not change.

MANY of the verses in this collection have appeared in Magazines: ‘How they held the Bass’ was in ‘Blackwood’s Magazine’; the ‘Ballad of the Philanthropist’ in ‘Punch’; ‘Calais Sands’ in ‘The Magazine of Art’ (Messrs. Cassell and Co.); and others are recaptured from ‘Longman’s Magazine,’ ‘Scribner’s,’ ‘The Illustrated London News,’ ‘The English Illustrated Magazine,’ ‘Wit and Wisdom’ (lines from Omar Khayyam), ‘The St. James’s Gazette,’ and possibly other serials. Some pieces are from commendatory verses for books, as for Mr. Jacobs’s ‘Æsop’; some are from Mr. Rider Haggard’s ‘World’s Desire,’ and ‘Cleopatra,’ two are from Kirk’s ‘Secret Commonwealth’ (Nutt, 1893), and ‘Neiges d’Antan,’ are from the author’s ‘Ballads and Lyrics of Old France,’ now long out of print.

CONTENTS

PAGE A Scot to Jeanne d’Arc 1 How they held the Bass for King James—1691–1693 4 Three portraits of Prince Charles 11 From Omar Khayyam 14 Æsop 16 Les Roses de Sâdi 18 The Haunted Tower 19 Boat-song 22 Lost Love 24 The Promise of Helen 26 The Restoration of Romance 27 Central American Antiquities 30 On Calais Sands 32 Ballade of Yule 34 Poscimur 36 On his Dead Sea-Mew 38 From Meleager 39 On the Garland Sent to Rhodocleia 40 A Galloway Garland 41 Celia’s Eyes 43 Britannia 44 Gallia 45 The Fairy Minister 46 To Robert Louis Stevenson 48 For Mark Twain’s Jubilee 50 POEMS WRITTEN UNDER THE INFLUENCE OF WORDSWORTH Mist 55 Lines 56 Lines 58 Ode to Golf 60 Freshman’s Term 62 A Toast 64 Death in June 66 To Correspondents 68 Ballade of Difficult Rhymes 70 Ballant o’ Ballantrae 72 Song by the Sub-Conscious Self 74 The Haunted Homes of England 75 The Disappointment 77 To the Gentle Reader 80 The Sonnet 84 The Tournay of the Heroes 85 Ballad of the Philanthropist 91 NEIGES D’ANTAN In Ercildoune 97 For a Rose’s Sake 100 The Brigand’s Grave 102 The New-Liveried Year 104 More Strong than Death 105 Silentia Lunae 107 His Lady’s Tomb 108 The Poet’s Apology 109 Notes 115

ERRATUM

READER, a blot hath escaped the watchfulness of the setter forth: if thou wilt thou mayst amend it. The sonnet on the forty-fourth page, against all right Italianate laws, hath but thirteen lines withal: add another to thy liking, if thou art a Maker; or, if thou art none, even be content with what is set before thee. If it be scant measure, be sure it is choicely good.

A SCOT TO JEANNE D’ARC

DARK Lily without blame, Not upon us the shame, Whose sires were to the Auld Alliance true, They, by the Maiden’s side, Victorious fought and died, One stood by thee that fiery torment through, Till the White Dove from thy pure lips had passed, And thou wert with thine own St. Catherine at the last.

Once only didst thou see In artist’s imagery, Thine own face painted, and that precious thing Was in an Archer’s hand From the leal Northern land. Alas, what price would not thy people bring To win that portrait of the ruinous Gulf of devouring years that hide the Maid from us!

Born of a lowly line, Noteless as once was thine, One of that name I would were kin to me, Who, in the Scottish Guard Won this for his reward, To fight for France, and memory of thee: Not upon us, dark Lily without blame, Not on the North may fall the shadow of that shame.

On France and England both The shame of broken troth, Of coward hate and treason black must be; If England slew thee, France Sent not one word, one lance, One coin to rescue or to ransom thee. And still thy Church unto the Maid denies The halo and the palms, the Beatific prize.

But yet thy people calls Within the rescued walls Of Orleans; and makes its prayer to thee; What though the Church have chidden These orisons forbidden, Yet art thou with this earth’s immortal Three, With him in Athens that of hemlock died, And with thy Master dear whom the world crucified.

HOW THEY HELD THE BASS FOR KING JAMES—1691–1693

Time of Narrating—1743

YE hae heard Whigs crack o’ the Saints in the Bass, my faith, a gruesome tale; How the Remnant paid at a tippeny rate, for a quart o’ ha’penny ale! But I’ll tell ye anither tale o’ the Bass, that’ll hearten ye up to hear, Sae I pledge ye to Middleton first in a glass, and a health to the Young Chevalier!