Ban and Arriere Ban: A Rally of Fugitive Rhymes

THREE PORTRAITS OF PRINCE CHARLES

1731

 
Beautiful face of a child,
   Lighted with laughter and glee,
Mirthful, and tender, and wild,
   My heart is heavy for thee!
 

1744

 
Beautiful face of a youth,
   As an eagle poised to fly forth,
To the old land loyal of truth,
   To the hills and the sounds of the North:
Fair face, daring and proud,
   Lo! the shadow of doom, even now,
The fate of thy line, like a cloud,
   Rests on the grace of thy brow!
 

1773

 
Cruel and angry face,
   Hateful and heavy with wine,
Where are the gladness, the grace,
   The beauty, the mirth that were thine?
 
 
Ah, my Prince, it were well, —
   Hadst thou to the gods been dear, —
To have fallen where Keppoch fell,
   With the war-pipe loud in thine ear!
To have died with never a stain
   On the fair White Rose of Renown,
To have fallen, fighting in vain,
   For thy father, thy faith, and thy crown!
More than thy marble pile,
   With its women weeping for thee,
Were to dream in thine ancient isle,
   To the endless dirge of the sea!
But the Fates deemed otherwise,
   Far thou sleepest from home,
From the tears of the Northern skies,
   In the secular dust of Rome.
 

* * *

 
A city of death and the dead,
   But thither a pilgrim came,
Wearing on weary head
   The crowns of years and fame:
Little the Lucrine lake
   Or Tivoli said to him,
Scarce did the memories wake
   Of the far-off years and dim.
For he stood by Avernus’ shore,
   But he dreamed of a Northern glen
And he murmured, over and o’er,
   ‘For Charlie and his men:’
And his feet, to death that went,
   Crept forth to St. Peter’s shrine,
And the latest Minstrel bent
   O’er the last of the Stuart line.
 

FROM OMAR KHAYYAM

RHYMED FROM THE PROSE VERSION OF

MR. JUSTIN HUNTLY M‘CARTHY

 
The Paradise they bid us fast to win
Hath Wine and Women; is it then a sin
   To live as we shall live in Paradise,
And make a Heaven of Earth, ere Heaven begin?
 
 
The wise may search the world from end to end,
From dusty nook to dusty nook, my friend,
   And nothing better find than girls and wine,
Of all the things they neither make nor mend.
 
 
Nay, listen thou who, walking on Life’s way,
Hast seen no lovelock of thy love’s grow grey
   Listen, and love thy life, and let the Wheel
Of Heaven go spinning its own wilful way.
 
 
Man is a flagon, and his soul the wine,
Man is a lamp, wherein the Soul doth shine,
   Man is a shaken reed, wherein that wind,
The Soul, doth ever rustle and repine.
 
 
Each morn I say, to-night I will repent,
Repent! and each night go the way I went —
   The way of Wine; but now that reigns the rose,
Lord of Repentance, rage not, but relent.
 
 
I wish to drink of wine – so deep, so deep —
The scent of wine my sepulchre shall steep,
   And they, the revellers by Omar’s tomb,
Shall breathe it, and in Wine shall fall asleep.
 
 
Before the rent walls of a ruined town
Lay the King’s skull, whereby a bird flew down
   ‘And where,’ he sang, ‘is all thy clash of arms?
Where the sonorous trumps of thy renown?’
 

ÆSOP

 
He sat among the woods, he heard
   The sylvan merriment: he saw
The pranks of butterfly and bird,
   The humours of the ape, the daw.
 
 
And in the lion or the frog —
   In all the life of moor and fen,
In ass and peacock, stork and dog,
   He read similitudes of men.
 
 
‘Of these, from those,’ he cried, ‘we come,
   Our hearts, our brains descend from these.’
And lo! the Beasts no more were dumb,
   But answered out of brakes and trees:
 
 
‘Not ours,’ they cried; ‘Degenerate,
   If ours at all,’ they cried again,
‘Ye fools, who war with God and Fate,
   Who strive and toil: strange race of men.
 
 
‘For we are neither bond nor free,
   For we have neither slaves nor kings,
But near to Nature’s heart are we,
   And conscious of her secret things.
 
 
‘Content are we to fall asleep,
   And well content to wake no more,
We do not laugh, we do not weep,
   Nor look behind us and before;
 
 
‘But were there cause for moan or mirth,
   ’Tis we, not you, should sigh or scorn,
Oh, latest children of the Earth,
   Most childish children Earth has borne.’
 

* * *

 
They spoke, but that misshapen slave
   Told never of the thing he heard,
And unto men their portraits gave,
   In likenesses of beast and bird!
 

LES ROSES DE SÂDI

 
This morning I vowed I would bring thee my Roses,
They were thrust in the band that my bodice encloses,
But the breast-knots were broken, the Roses went free.
The breast-knots were broken; the Roses together
Floated forth on the wings of the wind and the weather,
And they drifted afar down the streams of the sea.
 
 
And the sea was as red as when sunset uncloses,
But my raiment is sweet from the scent of the Roses,
Thou shalt know, Love, how fragrant a memory can be.
 

THE HAUNTED TOWER

SUGGESTED BY A POEM OF THÉOPHILE GAUTIER

 
In front he saw the donjon tall
   Deep in the woods, and stayed to scan
The guards that slept along the wall,
   Or dozed upon the bartizan.
He marked the drowsy flag that hung
   Unwaved by wind, unfrayed by shower,
He listened to the birds that sung
   Go forth and win the haunted tower!
The tangled brake made way for him,
   The twisted brambles bent aside;
And lo, he pierced the forest dim,
   And lo, he won the fairy bride!
For he was young, but ah! we find,
   All we, whose beards are flecked with grey,
Our fairy castle’s far behind,
   We watch it from the darkling way:
’Twas ours, that palace, in our youth,
   We revelled there in happy cheer:
Who scarce dare visit now in sooth,
   Le Vieux Château de Souvenir!
For not the boughs of forest green
   Begird that castle far away,
There is a mist where we have been
   That weeps about it, cold and grey.
And if we seek to travel back
   ’Tis through a thicket dim and sere,
With many a grave beside the track,
   And many a haunting form of fear.
Dead leaves are wet among the moss,
   With weed and thistle overgrown —
A ruined barge within the fosse,
   A castle built of crumbling stone!
The drawbridge drops from rusty chains,
   There comes no challenge from the hold;
No squire, nor dame, nor knight remains,
   Of all who dwelt with us of old.
And there is silence in the hall
   No sound of songs, no ray of fire;
But gloom where all was glad, and all
   Is darkened with a vain desire.
And every picture’s fading fast,
   Of fair Jehanne, or Cydalise.
Lo, the white shadows hurrying past,
   Below the boughs of dripping trees!
 

* * *

 
Ah rise, and march, and look not back,
   Now the long way has brought us here;
We may not turn and seek the track
   To the old Château de Souvenir!
 

BOAT-SONG

 
Adrift, with starlit skies above,
   With starlit seas below,
We move with all the suns that move,
   With all the seas that flow:
For, bond or free, earth, sky, and sea,
   Wheel with one central will,
And thy heart drifteth on to me,
   And only Time stands still.
 
 
Between two shores of death we drift,
   Behind are things forgot,
Before, the tide is racing swift
   To shores man knoweth not.
Above, the sky is far and cold,
   Below, the moaning sea
Sweeps o’er the loves that were of old,
   But thou, Love, love thou me.
 
 
Ah, lonely are the ocean ways,
   And dangerous the deep,
And frail the fairy barque that strays
   Above the seas asleep.
Ah, toil no more with helm or oar,
   We drift, or bond or free,
On yon far shore the breakers roar,
   But thou, Love, love thou me!
 

LOST LOVE

 
Who wins his Love shall lose her,
   Who loses her shall gain,
For still the spirit woos her,
   A soul without a stain;
And Memory still pursues her
   With longings not in vain!
 
 
He loses her who gains her,
   Who watches day by day
The dust of time that stains her,
   The griefs that leave her grey,
The flesh that yet enchains her
   Whose grace hath passed away!
 
 
Oh, happier he who gains not
   The Love some seem to gain:
The joy that custom stains not
   Shall still with him remain,
The loveliness that wanes not,
   The Love that ne’er can wane.
 
 
In dreams she grows not older
   The lands of Dream among,
Though all the world wax colder,
   Though all the songs be sung,
In dreams doth he behold her
   Still fair and kind and young.