

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

                          [Picture: Book cover]

               [Picture: Ban and Arrière ban frontispiece]





                           Ban and Arrière Ban


                        A RALLY OF FUGITIVE RHYMES

                              BY ANDREW LANG

                                * * * * *

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

                                * * * * *

                         [_All rights reserved_]

                                * * * * *

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

                                * * * * *




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!

   The Bass stands frae North Berwick Law a league or less to sea,
   About its feet the breakers beat, abune the sea-maws flee,
   There’s castle stark and dungeon dark, wherein the godly lay,
   That made their rant for the Covenant through mon