Part 1

Transcribed from the 1905 Longmans, Green and Co. edition by David Price, email ccx074@pglaf.org

NEW COLLECTED RHYMES

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BY ANDREW LANG

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LONGMANS, GREEN, AND CO. 39 PATERNOSTER ROW, LONDON NEW YORK AND BOMBAY

1905

All rights reserved

PREFACE

THIS poor little flutter of rhymes would not have been let down the wind: the project would have been abandoned but for the too flattering encouragement of a responsible friend. 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.

“These are but symbols that I sing, These names of Prince, and rose, and King; Types of things dear that do not die, But reign in loyal memory. Across the water surely they Abide their twenty-ninth of May; And we shall hail their happy reign, When Life comes to his own again,”—

over the water that divides us from the voices and faces of our desires and dreams.

Of 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. 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.

CONTENTS

DEDICATORY PAGE IN AUGUSTINUM DOBSON 3 LOYAL LYRICS HOW THE MAID MARCHED FROM BLOIS 7 LONE PLACES OF THE DEER 9 AN OLD SONG 10 JACOBITE “AULD LANG SYNE” 12 THE PRINCE’S BIRTHDAY 14 THE TENTH OF JUNE, 1715 15 WHITE ROSE DAY 17 RED AND WHITE ROSES 18 THE BONNIE BANKS O’ LOCH LOMOND 19 KENMURE 21 CULLODEN 23 THE LAST OF THE LEAL 25 JEANNE D’ARC 27 CRICKET RHYMES TO HELEN 31 BALLADE OF DEAD CRICKETERS 32 BRAHMA 34 CRITICAL OF LIFE, ART, AND LITERATURE GAINSBOROUGH GHOSTS 37 A REMONSTRANCE WITH THE FAIR 39 RHYME OF RHYMES 42 RHYME OF OXFORD COCKNEY RHYMES 44 ROCOCO 47 THE NEW ORPHEUS TO HIS EURYDICE 47 THE FOOD OF FICTION 59 “A HIGHLY VALUABLE CHAIN OF THOUGHTS” 51 MATRIMONY 53 PISCATORI PISCATOR 55 THE CONTENTED ANGLER 56 OFF MY GAME 58 THE PROPERTY OF A GENTLEMAN WHO HAS GIVEN UP COLLECTING 60 THE BALLADE OF THE SUBCONSCIOUS SELF 62 BALLADE OF THE OPTIMIST 64 ZIMBABWE 66 LOVE’S CRYPTOGRAM 68 TUSITALA 70 DISDAINFUL DIAPHENIA 72 TALL SALMACIS 73 JUBILEE POEMS WHAT FRANCESCO SAID OF THE JUBILEE 72 THE POET AND THE JUBILEE 79 ON ANY BEACH 81 ODE OF JUBILEE 82 JUBILEE BEFORE REVOLUTION 84 FOLK SONGS FRENCH PEASANT SONGS 89 BALLADS THE YOUNG RUTHVEN 93 THE QUEEN O’ SPAIN AND THE BAULD MCLEAN 97 KEITH OF CRAIGENTOLLY 101

DEDICATORY

In Augustinum Dobson.

JAM RUDE DONATUM.

DEAR Poet, now turned out to grass (Like him who reigned in Babylon), Forget the seasons overlaid By business and the Board of Trade: And sing of old-world lad and lass As in the summers that are gone.

Back to the golden prime of Anne! When you ambassador had been, And brought o’er sea the King again, Beatrix Esmond in his train, Ah, happy bard to hold her fan, And happy land with such a Queen!

We live too early, or too late, You should have shared the pint of Pope, And taught, well pleased, the shining shell To murmur of the fair Lepel, And changed the stars of St. John’s fate To some more happy horoscope.

By duchesses with roses crowned, And fed with chicken and champagne, Urbane and witty, and too wary To risk the feud of Lady Mary, You should have walked the courtly ground Of times that cannot come again.

Bring back these years in verse or prose, (I very much prefer your verse!) As on some Twenty-Ninth of May Restore the splendour and the sway, Forget the sins, the wars, the woes— The joys alone must you rehearse.

Forget the dunces (there is none So stupid as to snarl at you); So may your years with pen and book Run pleasant as an English brook Through meadows floral in the sun, And shadows fragrant of the dew.

And thus at ending of your span— As all must end—the world shall say, “His best he gave: he left us not A line that saints could wish to blot, For he was blameless, though a man, And though the poet, he was gay!”

LOYAL LYRICS

How the Maid Marched from Blois.