Rhymes a la Mode
Andrew Lang




Andrew Lang

Rhymes a la Mode





BALLADE DEDICATORY



TO


MRS. ELTON


OF WHITE STAUNTON

		Thepainted Briton built his mound,
		And left his celts and clay,
		On yon fair slope of sunlit ground
		That fronts your garden gay;
		The Roman came, he bore the sway,
		He bullied, bought, and sold,
		Your fountain sweeps his works away
		Beside your manor old!

		But still his crumbling urns are found
		Within the window-bay,
		Where once he listened to the sound
		That lulls you day by day; —
		The sound of summer winds at play,
		The noise of waters cold
		To Yarty wandering on their way,
		Beside your manor old!

		The Roman fell: his firm-set bound
		Became the Saxon’s stay;
		The bells made music all around
		For monks in cloisters grey,
		Till fled the monks in disarray
		From their warm chantry’s fold,
		Old Abbots slumber as they may,
		Beside your manor old!


Envoy

		Creeds, empires, peoples, all decay,
		Down into darkness, rolled;
		May life that’s fleet be sweet, I pray,
		Beside your manor old.




THE FORTUNATE ISLANDS





A DREAM IN JUNE



		In twilight of the longest day
		I lingered over Lucian,
		Till ere the dawn a dreamy way
		My spirit found, untrod of man,
		Between the green sky and the grey.

		Amid the soft dusk suddenly
		More light than air I seemed to sail,
		Afloat upon the ocean sky,
		While through the faint blue, clear and pale,
		I saw the mountain clouds go by:
		My barque had thought for helm and sail,
		And one mist wreath for canopy.

		Like torches on a marble floor
		Reflected, so the wild stars shone,
		Within the abysmal hyaline,
		Till the day widened more and more,
		And sank to sunset, and was gone,
		And then, as burning beacons shine
		On summits of a mountain isle,
		A light to folk on sea that fare,
		So the sky’s beacons for a while
		Burned in these islands of the air.

		Then from a starry island set
		Where one swift tide of wind there flows,
		Came scent of lily and violet,
		Narcissus, hyacinth, and rose,
		Laurel, and myrtle buds, and vine,
		So delicate is the air and fine:
		And forests of all fragrant trees
		Sloped seaward from the central hill,
		And ever clamorous were these

		With singing of glad birds; and still
		Such music came as in the woods
		Most lonely, consecrate to Pan,
		The Wind makes, in his many moods,
		Upon the pipes some shepherd Man,
		Hangs up, in thanks for victory!
		On these shall mortals play no more,
		But the Wind doth touch them, over and o’er,
		And the Wind’s breath in the reeds will sigh.

		Between the daylight and the dark
		That island lies in silver air,
		And suddenly my magic barque
		Wheeled, and ran in, and grounded there;
		And by me stood the sentinel
		Of them who in the island dwell;
		All smiling did he bind my hands,
		With rushes green and rosy bands,
		They have no harsher bonds than these
		The people of the pleasant lands
		Within the wash of the airy seas!

		Then was I to their city led:
		Now all of ivory and gold
		The great walls were that garlanded
		The temples in their shining fold,
		(Each fane of beryl built, and each
		Girt with its grove of shadowy beech,)
		And all about the town, and through,
		There flowed a River fed with dew,
		As sweet as roses, and as clear
		As mountain crystals pure and cold,
		And with his waves that water kissed
		The gleaming altars of amethyst
		That smoke with victims all the year,
		And sacred are to the Gods of old.

		There sat three Judges by the Gate,
		And I was led before the Three,
		And they but looked on me, and straight
		The rosy bonds fell down from me
		Who, being innocent, was free;
		And I might wander at my will
		About that City on the hill,
		Among the happy people clad
		In purple weeds of woven air
		Hued like the webs that Twilight weaves
		At shut of languid summer eves
		So light their raiment seemed; and glad
		Was every face I looked on there!

		There was no heavy heat, no cold,
		The dwellers there wax never old,
		Nor wither with the waning time,
		But each man keeps that age he had
		When first he won the fairy clime.
		The Night falls never from on high,
		Nor ever burns the heat of noon.
		But such soft light eternally
		Shines, as in silver dawns of June
		Before the Sun hath climbed the sky!

		Within these pleasant streets and wide,
		The souls of Heroes go and come,
		Even they that fell on either side
		Beneath the walls of Ilium;
		And sunlike in that shadowy isle
		The face of Helen and her smile
		Makes glad the souls of them that knew
		Grief for her sake a little while!
		And all true Greeks and wise are there;
		And with his hand upon the hair
		Of Phaedo, saw I Socrates,
		About him many youths and fair,
		Hylas, Narcissus, and with these
		Him whom the quoit of Phoebus slew
		By fleet Eurotas, unaware!

		All these their mirth and pleasure made
		Within the plain Elysian,
		The fairest meadow that may be,
		With all green fragrant trees for shade
		And every scented wind to fan,
		And sweetest flowers to strew the lea;
		The soft Winds are their servants fleet
		To fetch them every fruit at will
		And water from the river chill;
		And every bird that singeth sweet
		Throstle, and merle, and nightingale
		Brings blossoms from the dewy vale, —
		Lily, and rose, and asphodel —
		With these doth each guest twine his crown
		And wreathe his cup, and lay him down
		Beside some friend he loveth well.

		There with the shining Souls I lay
		When, lo, a Voice that seemed to say,
		In far-off haunts of Memory,
		Whoso death taste the Dead Men’s bread,
		Shall dwell for ever with these Dead,
		Nor ever shall his body lie
		Beside his friends, on the grey hill
		Where rains weep, and the curlews shrill
		And the brown water wanders by!

		Then did a new soul in me wake,
		The dead men’s bread I feared to break,
		Their fruit I would not taste indeed
		Were it but a pomegranate seed.
		Nay, not with these I made my choice
		To dwell for ever and rejoice,
		For otherwhere the River rolls
		That girds the home of Christian souls,
		And these my whole heart seeks are found
		On otherwise enchanted ground.

		Even so I put the cup away,
		The vision wavered, dimmed, and broke,
		And, nowise sorrowing, I woke
		While, grey among the ruins grey
		Chill through the dwellings of the dead,
		The Dawn crept o’er the Northern sea,
		Then, in a moment, flushed to red,
		Flushed all the broken minster old,
		And turned the shattered stones to gold,
		And wakened half the world with me!




L’Envoi



To E. W. G


(Who also had rhymed on the Fortune Islands of Lucian)

		Each in the self-same field we glean
		The field of the Samosatene,
		Each something takes and something leaves
		And this must choose, and that forego
		In Lucian’s visionary sheaves,
		To twine a modern posy so;
		But all any gleanings, truth to tell,
		Are mixed with mournful asphodel,
		While yours are wreathed with poppies red,
		With flowers that Helen’s feet have kissed,
		With leaves of vine that garlanded
		The Syrian Pantagruelist,
		The sage who laughed the world away,
		Who mocked at Gods, and men, and care,
		More sweet of voice than Rabelais,
		And lighter-hearted than Voltaire.




THE NEW MILLENIUM



(THE UNFORTUNATE ISLANDS.)




A VISION IN THE STRAND


		The jaded light of late July
		Shone yellow down the dusty Strand,
		The anxious people bustled by,
		Policeman, Pressman, you and I,
		And thieves, and judges of the land.

		So swift they strode they had not time
		To mark the humours of the Town,
		But I, that mused an idle rhyme,
		Looked here and there, and up and down,
		And many a rapid cart I spied
		That drew, as fast as ponies can,
		The Newspapers of either side,
		These joys of every Englishman!

		The Standard here, the Echo there,
		And cultured ev’ning papers fair,
		With din and fuss and shout and blare
		Through all the eager land they bare,
		The rumours of our little span.

		’Midst these, but ah, more slow of speed,
		A biggish box of sanguine hue
		Was tugged on a velocipede,
		And in and out the crowd, and through,
		An earnest stripling urged it well
		Perched on a cranky tricycle!

		A seedy tricycle he rode,
		Perchance some three miles in the hour,
		But, on the big red box that glowed
		Behind him, was a name of Power,
		Justice, (I read it e’er I wist,)
		The Organ of the Socialist!

		The paper carts fled fleetly by
		And vanished up the roaring Strand,
		And eager purchasers drew nigh
		Each with his penny in his hand,
		But Justice, scarce more fleet than I,
		Began to permeate the land,
		And dark, methinks, the twilight fell,
		Or ever Justice reached Pall Mall.

		Oh Man, (I stopped to moralize,)
		How eager thou to fight with Fate,
		To bring Astraea from the skies;
		Yet ah, how too inadequate
		The means by which thou fain wouldst cope
		With Laws and Morals, King and Pope!
		“Justice!” – how prompt the witling’s sneer, —
		“Justice!  Thou wouldst have Justice here!
		And each poor man should be a squire,
		Each with his competence a year,
		Each with sufficient beef and beer,
		And all things matched to his desire,
		While all the Middle Classes should
		With every vile Capitalist
		Be clean reformed away for good,
		And vanish like a morning mist!

		“Ah splendid Vision, golden time,
		An end of hunger, cold, and crime.
		An end of Rent, an end of Rank,
		An end of balance at the Bank,
		An end of everything that’s meant
		To bring Investors five per cent!”

		How fair doth Justice seem, I cried,
		Yet oh, how strong the embattled powers
		That war against on every side
		Justice, and this great dream of ours,
		And what have we to plead our cause
		’Gainst Masters, Capital, and laws,
		What but a big red box indeed,
		With copies of a weekly screed,
		That’s slowly jolted, up and down,
		Behind an old velocipede
		To clamour Justice through the town:
		How touchingly inadequate
		These arms wherewith we’d vanquish Fate!

		Nay, the old Order shall endure
		And little change the years shall know,
		And still the Many shall be poor,
		And still the Poor shall dwell in woe;
		Firm in the iron Law of things
		The strong shall be the wealthy still,
		And (called Capitalists or Kings)
		Shall seize and hoard the fruits of skill.
		Leaving the weaker for their gain,
		Leaving the gentler for their prize
		Such dens and husks as beasts disdain, —
		Till slowly from the wrinkled skies
		The fireless frozen Sun shall wane,
		Nor Summer come with golden grain;
		Till men be glad, mid frost and snow
		To live such equal lives of pain
		As now the hutted Eskimo!
		Then none shall plough nor garner seed,
		Then, on some last sad human shore,
		Equality shall reign indeed,
		The Rich shall be with us no more,
		Thus, and not otherwise, shall come
		The new, the true Millennium!




ALMAE MATRES



(ST. ANDREWS, 1862. OXFORD, 1865)

		St. Andrews by the Northern sea,
		A haunted town it is to me!
		A little city, worn and grey,
		The grey North Ocean girds it round.
		And o’er the rocks, and up the bay,
		The long sea-rollers surge and sound.
		And still the thin and biting spray
		Drives down the melancholy street,
		And still endure, and still decay,
		Towers that the salt winds vainly beat.
		Ghost-like and shadowy they stand
		Dim mirrored in the wet sea-sand.

		St. Leonard’s chapel, long ago
		We loitered idly where the tall
		Fresh budded mountain ashes blow
		Within thy desecrated wall:
		The tough roots rent the tomb below,
		The April birds sang clamorous,
		We did not dream, we could not know
		How hardly Fate would deal with us!

		O, broken minster, looking forth
		Beyond the bay, above the town,
		O, winter of the kindly North,
		O, college of the scarlet gown,
		And shining sands beside the sea,
		And stretch of links beyond the sand,
		Once more I watch you, and to me
		It is as if I touched his hand!

		And therefore art thou yet more dear,
		O, little city, grey and sere,
		Though shrunken from thine ancient pride
		And lonely by thy lonely sea,
		Than these fair halls on Isis’ side,
		Where Youth an hour came back to me!

		A land of waters green and clear,
		Of willows and of poplars tall,
		And, in the spring time of the year,
		The white may breaking over all,
		And Pleasure quick to come at call.
		And summer rides by marsh and wold,
		And Autumn with her crimson pall
		About the towers of Magdalen rolled;
		And strange enchantments from the past,
		And memories of the friends of old,
		And strong Tradition, binding fast
		The “flying terms” with bands of gold, —

		All these hath Oxford: all are dear,
		But dearer far the little town,
		The drifting surf, the wintry year,
		The college of the scarlet gown,
		St. Andrews by the Northern sea,
		That is a haunted town to me!




DESIDERIUM



IN MEMORIAM S. F. A

		The call of homing rooks, the shrill
		Song of some bird that watches late,
		The cries of children break the still
		Sad twilight by the churchyard gate.

		And o’er your far-off tomb the grey
		Sad twilight broods, and from the trees
		The rooks call on their homeward way,
		And are you heedless quite of these?

		The clustered rowan berries red
		And Autumn’s may, the clematis,
		They droop above your dreaming head,
		And these, and all things must you miss?

		Ah, you that loved the twilight air,
		The dim lit hour of quiet best,
		At last, at last you have your share
		Of what life gave so seldom, rest!

		Yes, rest beyond all dreaming deep,
		Or labour, nearer the Divine,
		And pure from fret, and smooth as sleep,
		And gentle as thy soul, is thine!

		So let it be!  But could I know
		That thou in this soft autumn eve,
		This hush of earth that pleased thee so,
		Hadst pleasure still, I might not grieve.




RHYMES A LA MODE





BALLADE OF MIDDLE AGE


		Our youth began with tears and sighs,
		With seeking what we could not find;
		Our verses all were threnodies,
		In elegiacs still we whined;
		Our ears were deaf, our eyes were blind,
		We sought and knew not what we sought.
		We marvel, now we look behind:
		Life’s more amusing than we thought!

		Oh, foolish youth, untimely wise!
		Oh, phantoms of the sickly mind!
		What? not content with seas and skies,
		With rainy clouds and southern wind,
		With common cares and faces kind,
		With pains and joys each morning brought?
		Ah, old, and worn, and tired we find
		Life’s more amusing than we thought!

		Though youth “turns spectre-thin and dies,”
		To mourn for youth we’re not inclined;
		We set our souls on salmon flies,
		We whistle where we once repined.
		Confound the woes of human-kind!
		By Heaven we’re “well deceived,” I wot;
		Who hum, contented or resigned,
		“Life’s more amusing than we thought!”


Envoy

		O nate mecum, worn and lined
		Our faces show, but that is naught;
		Our hearts are young ’neath wrinkled rind:
		Life’s more amusing than we thought!




THE LAST CAST



THE ANGLER’S APOLOGY

		Just one cast more! how many a year
		Beside how many a pool and stream,
		Beneath the falling leaves and sere,
		I’ve sighed, reeled up, and dreamed my dream!

		Dreamed of the sport since April first
		Her hands fulfilled of flowers and snow,
		Adown the pastoral valleys burst
		Where Ettrick and where Teviot flow.

		Dreamed of the singing showers that break,
		And sting the lochs, or near or far,
		And rouse the trout, and stir “the take”
		From Urigil to Lochinvar.

		Dreamed of the kind propitious sky
		O’er Ari Innes brooding grey;
		The sea trout, rushing at the fly,
		Breaks the black wave with sudden spray!


* * * * *

		Brief are man’s days at best; perchance
		I waste my own, who have not seen
		The castled palaces of France
		Shine on the Loire in summer green.

		And clear and fleet Eurotas still,
		You tell me, laves his reedy shore,
		And flows beneath his fabled hill
		Where Dian drave the chase of yore.

		And “like a horse unbroken” yet
		The yellow stream with rush and foam,
		’Neath tower, and bridge, and parapet,
		Girdles his ancient mistress, Rome!

		I may not see them, but I doubt
		If seen I’d find them half so fair
		As ripples of the rising trout
		That feed beneath the elms of Yair.

		Nay, Spring I’d meet by Tweed or Ail,
		And Summer by Loch Assynt’s deep,
		And Autumn in that lonely vale
		Where wedded Avons westward sweep,

		Or where, amid the empty fields,
		Among the bracken of the glen,
		Her yellow wreath October yields,
		To crown the crystal brows of Ken.

		Unseen, Eurotas, southward steal,
		Unknown, Alpheus, westward glide,
		You never heard the ringing reel,
		The music of the water side!

		Though Gods have walked your woods among,
		Though nymphs have fled your banks along;
		You speak not that familiar tongue
		Tweed murmurs like my cradle song.

		My cradle song, – nor other hymn
		I’d choose, nor gentler requiem dear
		Than Tweed’s, that through death’s twilight dim,
		Mourned in the latest Minstrel’s ear!




TWILIGHT



SONNET


(AFTER RICHEPIN.)

		Light has flown!
		Through the grey
		The wind’s way
		The sea’s moan
		Sound alone!
		For the day
		These repay
		And atone!

		Scarce I know,
		Listening so
		To the streams
		Of the sea,
		If old dreams
		Sing to me!




BALLADE OF SUMMER



TO C. H. ARKCOLL

		When strawberry pottles are common and cheap,
		Ere elms be black, or limes be sere,
		When midnight dances are murdering sleep,
		Then comes in the sweet o’ the year!
		And far from Fleet Street, far from here,
		The Summer is Queen in the length of the land,
		And moonlit nights they are soft and clear,
		When fans for a penny are sold in the Strand!

		When clamour that doves in the lindens keep
		Mingles with musical plash of the weir,
		Where drowned green tresses of crowsfoot creep,
		Then comes in the sweet o’ the year!
		And better a crust and a beaker of beer,
		With rose-hung hedges on either hand,
		Than a palace in town and a prince’s cheer,
		When fans for a penny are sold in the Strand!

		When big trout late in the twilight leap,
		When cuckoo clamoureth far and near,
		When glittering scythes in the hayfield reap,
		Then comes in the sweet o’ the year!
		And it’s oh to sail, with the wind to steer,
		Where kine knee deep in the water stand,
		On a Highland loch, on a Lowland mere,




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