The Complete Poetical Works of Robert Buchanan :: :: University of Virginia Library

Two miles of field and wood as flies the crow,
But thrice two miles of azure curves and bends
As winds the peaceful river, turning oft
With lingering feet as turns and turns again
On her own footprints some sweet dreaming maid
Who gathers ferns and flowers with listless hand,
Lay like a jewel a green promontory
Sparkling bright emerald on the breast of Tweed.
Thither next day our happy company
In barges, boats, and shallops idly rowed,
A bright flotilla, all the rainbow's hues
Fluttering in sunshine and in azure depths
Brokenly mirror'd; Satyrs, Nymphs, and Fauns,
The Graces under pink silk parasols,
The Muses under Gainsborough hats of straw,
Venus, white-vestured and without her doves,
Chattering to Vulcan in blue spectacles,
The modern Syrens, singing as they dipt
White hands in crystal o'er the shallop's side,
Followed each other merrily as we went.
And here the willow trailed her yellow locks
In golden shallows whence the kingfisher
Flashed like a living topaz and was gone;
And here the clustering water-lilies spread
Their oilèd leaves and alabaster cups,
Tangled amid the river's sedgy hair;
And there from shadowy oaks that fringed the stream
The squirrel stood upright and lookt at us
With beaded eyes; and all the flowery banks
Were loud with hum of bees and song of birds;
And often on the smooth and silent pools,
Brimful of golden warmth and heavenly light,
The salmon sprang a foot into the sun,
Sparkled in panoply of silver mail,
And sank in the circle of his own bright leap!

For on the promontory which we sought
A Hermit in the olden time had dwelt,
White-hair'd, white-bearded, cress and pulse his food,
The crystal stream his drink; and still the rock
Preserved the outline of his mossy cell;
And where his naked foot had press'd the grass
Under the shadowy boughs of oak and beech,
The blue of heaven had fallen and blossom'd up
In azure harebells multitudinous,
For ever misted with their own soft breath
Of sunless summer dew.

Gaily we sailed,
And after many windings serpentine
We reached the place. Against the grassy banks
Our boats discharged their many-coloured freight,
Till all the flowery slopes and dusky glades
Were busy and bright with smiling human shapes;
And through the warm and honeysuckled ways,
Tangled with bramble, ferns, and foxglove bells,
We pushed our path until we found indeed
The mossy cell, with overhanging eaves
Encalendured with lichens like the Cross,
And down below the dewy grass, knee-deep,
And countless hyacinths with their waxen stems
And fairy bells of thin transparent blue.
Most cool and still, embower'd on every side,
With just a peep of azure overhead,
Was that sweet sanctuary, hush'd as a nest
Deserted, with no stir of summer sound;
And down the mossy rock a crystal dew
Stole coldly, while one sparkling minute drop
Fell like quicksilver on a flowering fern,
Gleam'd, and rolled luminous to the chill green ground.

Hard by the cell we found an open lawn
Sprinkled with fronds of fern and azure flowers,

And here full soon we spread our snowy cloths
And picnick'd in the sunlight. From the boughs
The gold-bill'd blackbird and the bluewing'd jay
Gazed down on such a scene as birds beheld
When Oberon's enchanted cavaliers
Stole forth to banquet underneath the moon;
And they whose scientific bolts and brooms
Had driven the fairies forth from field and farm,
So that the shepherdess and dairymaid
No longer fear the roguish pixy's thumb
Punishing idleness, were merriest there,
And laughed as loud as if the work-a-day world
Were sweetly haunted yet! In lily hands
The light glass tinkled, while the beaded wine
Cream'd and ran o'er, and every learnèd lap
Was like a Dryad's, full of ripen'd fruit;
And presently for sport our Satyrs plucked
Flowers of the wood, and pelted merrily
Some saucy-eyed Bacchantes, who upsprang
White-bosom'd, dimple-breasted, and escaped
Hotly pursued into the flowery glades—
Whence silvery peals of laughter, stifled cries,
Were wafted to us on the summer air.

Then to her throne, a high and mossy bank
Emblazon'd with the crowsfoot's dusky gold,
Our Barbara moved, with royally lifted hand
Enjoining silence; happily her court
Clustered about her, as she smiled and cried—
‘Surround me and attend, all ye whose souls,
Though glad with summer light and warm with milk
Of Venus (which we moderns call champagne!)
Remember that Great Problem, and our oath
Each day to take it as a summer theme.
Here on this very spot, in yonder cell,
The holy Hermit dwelt and ponder'd it
Alone, so many a hundred years ago.
Alas! how few in this our feverish age
Dare play the hermit now! Our anchorites
Are noisy men, who tell their beads for show,
And print their prosings in the magazines
Beside the gigman's diatribes at “God,”
Spelt with a little “g”!’

A quiet voice,
That of a bright-eyed preacher from the north—
(Our Norman, ripe and mellow as Friar Tuck,
Yet tender-soul'd as sweet Maid Marian!)—
Made echo:—‘Wisely spoken! Here and there
A few sad thinkers crawl on hands and knees
Into the temples of the solitude;
But these, being reverent, are awed and dumb,—
Unlike the jaunty, dapper, newly breech'd
Child of the age, who, strutting in the sun
Selling his birthright for a penman's praise,
Denies his Heavenly Father!’

‘Pardon me,’
Broke in the scoffer, Douglas Sutherland,
‘The age we live in has its vanities
I grant you, but it stands supreme in this,—
The use of soap and water, the crusade
Still needful against other-worldliness.
If holiness be gauged by length of nail,
Heart's purity by epidermic crust,
I grant your anchorites were blessed men;
If not, quite otherwise; and for the rest,
The Heavenly Father they perceived and praised,
Their magnified non-natural Heavenly Father,
Was, like themselves, a dull old Anchorite,
Unclean and useless, brooding in a den
With Fever for his servant, Pestilence
To scatter forth his breathings. Nowadays
We prize a cleanlier Godhead, scorning dreams
Which at the best are childish,—in a word,
Anthropomorphic!’

Then that other's face,
A little angry, for a burning soul
With faith at white heat cannot jest with fire,
Flash'd scornfully and almost pityingly—
‘The babe must have his rattle, and the child
His catchword! Verily, Science is at best
A foolish Virgin, thinking to destroy

The Eternal Verity with a cumbrous phrase!
Anthropomorphic, say you, is the dream,—
A man's, an infant's, vision of himself
Flashed upon mental darkness? Be it so.
Then as a child that in the cradle lies
And feels the darkness stir, and seems to feel
The brightness of a face he cannot see,
I, who am old, accept the happy dream,
And, since you will it so, the phrase as well.
Go, range the empty heaven of fantasy
Upon Spinoza's wingèd horse of brass
(Which, coming down to earth with thundershock,
Stuns him that rides and robs him of an eye),
Or lose your wits in Hegel's cloud of words,
Or prone on hands and knees inspect the worms
With Darwin, or with Spencer blankly stare
At vacuum and the Inconceivable;
But what if, like those leaders, lonely men,
You find yourselves at last without a Friend?
Meantime I stretch a hand out in the darkness
And touch—my Father's; nay, I wake and gaze,
And lo! I see the very Face and Form
I have dream'd of; and, a child once more, I say
“Our Father,” and I know my prayer is heard!
God help me if my God be not indeed
The Father of my simple childish faith!’

Then Douglas shrugged his shoulders, scorning speech
With one in Superstition's swaddling clothes;
But something in the brave benignant face,
Bright-eyed and lofty-brow'd, and in the voice
So tender with its soft deep Highland burr,
Subdued us, and we listened reverently
Ev'n where we doubted most; and when he ceased
A certain timid echo in our hearts
Murmur'd approval. Thereupon our Queen
Besought him, having faith so absolute,
To carry our fitful torch of tale-telling
A little space that day, 'then hand it on
To the next, and next. He shook his head and smiled,
Then answer'd, being urged—‘To me at least
Your Problem is no Problem after all—
I solved it at my Heavenly Father's knee,
Spelling His Name out of the Book Divine,
And looking up into those loving eyes
With which He shines upon the worst and best;
But since you wish it, I will tell a tale
Of that same heavenly Presence—how it came
To one who was in heart a little child,
But who, being lesson'd by the over-wise,
Beheld the gentle dream dissolve away.’

Then, without further prelude, he began
This story of the monk Serapion,
Who in the evening of his days embraced
The sweet anthropomorphic heresy.