BOOK REVIEWS - POETRY

1. Poems & Love Lyrics (1857) to Undertones (1863)

Poems & Love Lyrics (1857)

Caledonian Mercury (Edinburgh) (25 December, 1857 - Issue 21294)

POEMS AND LOVE LYRICS. By ROBT. W. BUCHANAN.
Edinburgh: Sutherland & Knox.

IN the face of an urgent appeal from the author, in the preface, to deal gently with his “many and very obvious demerits,” it would be ungracious to look with other than an indulgent eye on these first-fruits of his fancy. He tells us, moreover, that his present ambitions are humble in the extreme, and that the volume now submitted to us is not to be regarded as a true test of what he is capable of accomplishing. By far the larger portion of the collection, it seems, was composed before he had attained his sixteenth year, and some of the pieces were written when he was barely thirteen. We are expected, therefore, to suspend the usual severity of criticism in our review of these youthful aspirings, and to treat them pretty much as good-humoured people view the performances of juvenile prodigies. Some grumbler may probably ask why thrust productions thus confessedly immature before the public at all? This is a question, however, which we must leave the author himself to settle. With that proneness to imitation of the reigning poet of the day, characteristic of young versifiers, Mr Buchanan, nevertheless, in his “Poems and Love Lyrics,” gives proof of an originality occasionally very startling. We read of white lambkins cooling the air with sound, of love feeding with lilies the propelling wind, and of a maiden’s eyes in love-lorn fondness watering for her lover’s arms. On the other hand, we meet with touches which unmistakeably proclaim Mr Buchanan to be a true poet. How beautiful the following passage from his poem on “Infant Slumber”:—

Here, from the tight-frilled cap, a curl escapes
O’er the blue temples calm; the coverlit
In glowing warm is to the waist thrust down,
(Wee waist! which the white night-gown girdles meet,
Tied careful round by fond affection’s fingers),
And on it lies one tiny, dimpled hand,
Clasped tight—as tho’ to miser up the pearls
Wash’d on sleep’s shore by the soft tide of dreams.

In another of his lyric effusions—“Love’s Heaven,” his soul “growing and soaring, and brightening” in the “pure sparkling bliss of holy communion,” is compared to “an April bud opening into its May,” and again to “a poor heath sprig, yet bright in its morning,” for his life’s one bright particular sun has “kissed the dewy-drop” glittering on his stem, and shines “stainless and clear.” We regret that some of the finest pieces in the volume are too long for quotation, and a mere extract would give but an imperfect idea of them. We may, however, refer to “Wooing” and “Waiting,” and to his song “Be Bold! the fields of Summer Green,” as among his better efforts.

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Mary, and other Poems (1859)

The Era (10 April, 1859 - Issue 1072)

MARY AND OTHER POEMS. By the Author of “Lyrics.”
London: Hall, Virtue, and Co.

     Mr. Buchanan, the author of this volume, has certainly the germs of poetry in him; and if he will prune and restrain his muse, rather than force her beyond her strength, he may do well. She will be a credit and comfort to him, but she will not put bread on his table, should he unfortunately expect that from her. The preface betrays more humility of expression than of feeling, and the dedication to Mr. Gilfillan is significant, as that gentleman is apt to raise false hopes in his proteges. It is very common for men of poetical temperament not to know how to use the riches of imagination, which they possess. Let Mr. Buchanan remember this, and neither flatter himself nor let others flatter him. He can now write prettily; with time, labour, and care, he may probably write well. If friends will tell him that he can write what Tennyson might be proud of (vide Critic), let him shut his ears to the deluding misjudgment, and rest assured that such competition is altogether out of his reach.

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Undertones (1863)

Glasgow Herald (26 December, 1863 - Issue 7477)

LITERATURE.
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UNDERTONES. By Robert Buchanan. London: Edward Moxon & Co. (Pp.241.)

MR. BUCHANAN says in his preface that the class of minds to which his poems appeal will understand him, when he states that he was compelled at too early an age to get his bread by letters, and that the composition of an ambitious poetic work like the “Undertones” has, therefore, been attended with many difficulties. Had greater leizure been at his disposal, the fruit of his studies would have been mellower and riper; yet we freely accord to Mr. Buchanan “a certain victory,” which he claims, in having been able at so early an age to complete his ambitious project, and we accept his work as a triumph both for what is accomplished, and for what is indicated as being within the reach of his genius. The “Undertones,” by which we understand the mythological portion of the work, may be described as half-fanciful, half-philosophic readings of some of the old Grecian myths—an old poetic theme, which has not been much affected of late. The heathen gods have rather gone out of fashion with modern poets, and even the recognised patron of poetry—Apollo—is scarcely now once appealed to, for their reign in imaginative literature completely passed away with the new poetic vigour that succeeded the first French Revolution. And yet the old stories of the gods, of the Naiads, Dryads, and Satyrs, and of the semi-divine heroes of Greece, have a perpetual interest, especially to youthful imaginations, and will probably be capable of new interpretations to all time. Mr. Buchanan has seized these old and somewhat hackneyed subjects with remarkable boldness and originality, and reads us a fresh and noble lesson out of them. He has linked together his principal themes by a chain of thought which we understand to be the undertones; and though we should have liked that Mr. Buchanan had made his meaning plainer to the generality of readers, it is not improbable that the class of minds to which he appeals may rather themselves prefer to lift the veil with which he has thought fit to hide some of his boldest and most original conceptions. In some of the myths it is not difficult to recognise the new thought of our time peeping out from beneath the Pagan drapery. What, for instance, could better shadow forth one of the highest speculations of modern thinkers than the following lines from the myth of Proteus:—

     Through wondrous change on change—
Haunted for ever by a hollow tune,
Made ere the birth of sun, or stars, or moon—
          I, Proteus, range.

     Nay, evermore, I grow,
Darker, with deeper power to see and know.
For in the end, I, Proteus, shall cast
     All wondrous shapes aside but one alone,
And stand (while round about me in the vast,
The earth, sun, stars, and moon burn out at last)
          A skeleton that kneels, before a throne.

These lines are written by a true poet, because, with the trick of rhyme, flow of fancy, and felicitous expression, we recognise a rich thoughtfulness which only come from a poetic imagination. The undertone in “Proteus” swells up into a full round note, but in some of the poems it is not so distinct, and it is smothered altogether in others, by the luxuriance of the language. Pan forms the subject of one of Mr. Buchanan’s poems, and he has treated that most mystical and wonderful of all the Grecian fables with a fresh original power that does one good to read. Pan thus addresses the gods:—

                                  ME, when at first
Light dawned on chaos like the ghost of form,
When the deep murmured, and Eternity
Gave forth a hollow sound, while from its voids
Ye blossomed thick as flowers, and by the light
Beheld yourselves, eternal and divine—
ME, underneath the “darkness visible,”
And calm as ocean, when the cold moon smoothes
The palpitating waves, without a sound—
Me, ye saw sleeping in a dream, white-haired,
Low-lidded, gentle, aged, and like the shade
Of the eternal self-unconsciousness,
Out of whose law YE had awakened—gods,
Fair-statured, self-apparent, marvellous,
Dove-eyed, and inconceivably divine.

     A Platonist might have written the foregoing, but only a modern thinker could have made Pan utter the following prophecy:—

                       In the time to come,—in years
Across whose vast I wearily impel
These ancient, bleared, and humble-lidded eyes,—
Some law more strong than me, yet part of me,
Some power more piteous, yet a part of me,
Shall hurl ye from Olympus to the depths,
And bruise ye back to that great darkness, whence
Ye blossomed thick as flowers; while I—I, Pan,
The ancient haunting shadow of dim earth,
Shall slough this form of beast, this wrinkled length,
Yea, cast it from my feet, as one who shakes
A worthless garment off; and lo, beneath,
Mild-featured manhood, manhood eminent,
Subdued into the glory of a god,
Sheer harmony of body and of soul,
Wondrous, and inconceivably divine.

We quote those verses rather to show the spirit in which Mr. Buchanan has conceived the “Undertones,” than to illustrate the power of his imagination, or the variegated music of his verse. We might cull numerous beautiful images and bits of word-painting from every page of the “Undertones;” but we consider it of far greater consequence for Mr. Buchanan’s reputation to show that, besides possessing full powers of expression, he has also something to express, and that a fertile, bold, and original intellect underlies, and to some extent controls, the exuberant fancy which puts forth the lush summer flowers and blossomings in his poems. His verses please the ear, with their mere verbal melody, but beneath that there is a low sublimer tone, which perhaps only some of his readers will catch, and hail with far greater pleasure than the louder but more commonplace melody of the former. In “Ades, King of Hell,” the first myth treated by Mr. Buchanan, we have the love marriage of the earth and the nether-world—life and death—sung in stanzas that no young poet of the present day has equalled. The verse chosen in this poem is difficult to manage, but in Mr. Buchanan’s hand it becomes melodious as the reeds of Pan. Here is the picture of the daughter of Cere, the bride of Ades:—

Soft yellow hair, that curled and clang,
     Throbbed to her feet in softest showers,
     And as she went she gathered flowers,
And as she gathered flowers she sang.
          It floated down my sulphurous eaves,
          That faint sweet song of flowers and leaves,
Of vineyards, gushing purple wines, and yellow slanting sheaves.

The three last verses, in which Ades tells of the mild influences of his Queen on the nether-world, are so beautiful that we cannot refrain from quoting them, especially as they illustrate the power of the poet in veiling new though under old fable:—

And in the seed-time, after snow,
     Down the long caves in soft distress,
     Dry corn blades tangled in her dress,
The weary goddess wanders slow—
     The million eyes of hell are bent
     On my strange Queen in wonderment,—
The ghost of Iris gleams across my waters impotent!

And the sweet bow bends mild and bland
     O’er rainy meadows near the light,
     When fading far along the night
They wander upward hand in hand;
     And like a phantom I remain,
     Chained to a throne in lonely reign,
Till, sweet with greenness, moonlight-kissed, she wanders back again.

But, when afar thro’ rifts of gold
     And caverns steep’d in fog complete,
     I hear the beat of her soft feet,
My kingdom totters as of old;
     And, conscious of her sweeter worth,
     Her godhead of serener birth,
Hell, breathing fire thro’ flowers and leaves, feels to the upper earth.

In the Satyr Mr. Buchanan gives us, first of all, a vivid picture of that half-human half-bestial denizen of the woods and rocks as conceived by the Grecian imagination; but, superadded to this is the craving for love, and the unutterable human longing of the monster. We see in this suggestive poem the mere creature of the earth stirred into a new sensation of being, by heavenly influences, his hard face softening, and his hairy breast tenderly heaving, till it seems as if the prophecy of Pan were to be fulfilled in his case also. The following lines show the half dreaming, humanising thoughts of the Satyr:—

But ere I knew aught
     Of others like me,
I would lie, fancy fraught,
In the greenness of thought,
     Beneath a green tree;
And seem to be deep
In the scented earth-shade,
’Neath the grass of the glade,
In a strange half sleep;
When the wind seemed to move me,
The stars in their bliss
To tingle above me:
And I crept thro’ deep bowers
That were sparkling with showers,
And sprouting for pleasure,
And I quickened the flowers
To a joy without measure—
Till my sense seemed consuming,
With warmth and upspringing
I saw the flowers blooming
And heard the birds singing!

     In Polypheme’s Passion, we have a well managed dialogue between Silenus and the One-Eyed Cyclops—the subject being love as it struggles with the gross appetites of this god-born, but earthly and sensual monster. The Greeks have represented the Cyclops to us as the embodiment of merely physical strength, inhospitable to men, defiant of the gods, and one-eyed mentally as well as physically. Mr. Buchanan touches the heart of this strange being with love for the sea goddess Galatea, and forthwith that melting passion transforms the great hulking giant from a dull scowling savage into a strangely tender lover, feeling after and bemoaning his want of the graces of humanity. Silenus, we understand, with his drunken counsel, is used as a foil to the love and tenderness of Polypheme.
     Silenus recommends him to seek counsel at the oracle of the bottle—

Wine in his nostrils, Polypheme will be,
In Polypheme’s own estimation,
A match for any girl on land or sea;
Then furiously, gloriously rash,
Grasp opportunity, that, passing by
On the sheet-lightning with a moment’s flash
Haunts us for ever with its meteor eye;
And grasp the thing you pant for now in vain,
Ay, hold her fast, and, if you choose, entreat her;
But, if she still be deaf to your sad pain,
Why hearken to the mad god in your brain,
And make a meal of trouble—that is, eat her.

     Penelope is a very fine poem, from which we might quote some beautiful passages; but we pass it and several minor pieces to notice “Pygmalion the Sculptor,” which is certainly the author’s most ambitious effort. It is the most carefully handled, and shows, even more fully than any of the pieces we have yet referred to, that which we have claimed for this young poet—viz., originality of conception, and the power of conveying suggestive ideas. He catches and reflects back to his readers “the light that never was on sea and shore” with an almost unconscious effort on his part. This poem has many morals. The most obvious—the bitter end of unlawful love—will at once suggest itself to the reader; but, studied attentively, it may teach some things even higher. We have only room for a few verses. The following represents the sculptor gazing on his finished work:—

     When Shame lay heavy on me, and I hid
My face, and almost hated her, my work,
Because she was so fair, so human fair,
Yea not divinely fair as that pure face
Which, when mine hour of loss and travail came,
Haunted me, out of heaven. Then the Dawn
Stared in upon her; when I open’d eyes,
And saw the gradual Dawn encrimson her
Like blood that blush’d within her,—and behold
She trembled—and I shriek’d!

                                                   With haggard eyes
I gaz’d on her, my fame, my work, my love!
Red sunrise mingled with the first bright flush
Of palpable life—she trembled, stirr’d, and sigh’d—
And the dim blankness of her stony eyes
Melted to azure. Then, by slow degrees,
She tingled with the milky warmth of blood:
Her eyes were vacant of a seeing soul,
But dewily the bosom rose and fell,
The lips caught sunrise, parting, and the breath
Fainted thro’ pearly teeth.

He woos the fair but soulless form which he has created, and for a few days revels in the pleasures of her love. But he is degraded, and almost sinks to the level of the merely sensuous creature whom he has wedded, when the plague spares him from drinking the full contents of the circe cup.

     Then sat we, side by side. She, queenly stoled,
Amid the gleaming fountains of her hair,
With liquid azure orbs and rosy lips
Gorgeous with honey’d kisses; I like a man
Who loves fair eyes and knows they are a fiend’s,
And in them sees a heav’n he knows is hell.
For, like a glorious beast, she ate and drank,
Staining her lips in crimson wine, and laugh’d
To feel the vinous bubbles froth and burst
In veins whose sparking blood was meet to be
An angel’s habitation. Cup on cup
I drain’d in fulness—careless as a god—
A haggard bearded head upon a breast
In tumult like a sun-kist bed of flowers.
Three days and nights the vision dwelt with me,
Three days and nights we dozed in dreadful state,
Look’d piteously upon by sun and star;
But the third night there pass’d a homeless sound
Across the city underneath my tower,
And lo! there came a roll of muffled wheels,
A shrieking and a hurrying to and fro
Beneath, and I gazed forth. Then far below
I heard the people shriek “A pestilence!”
                   *     *     *     *     *
     I turn’d to her, the partner of my height:
She, with bright eyeballs sick with wine, and hair
Gleaming in sunset, on a couch asleep.
And lo! a horror lifted up my scalp.
The pulses plunged upon the heart, and fear
Froze my wide eyelids. Peacefully she lay
In purple stole arrayed, one little hand
Bruising the downy cheek, the other still
Clutching the dripping goblet, and the light,
With gleams of crimson on the ruinous hair,
Spangling a blue-vein’d bosom whence the robe
Fell back in rifled folds; but dreadful change
Grew pale and hideous on the waxen face,
And in her sleep she did not stir, nor dream.

The other poems, composing the “Undertones,” are all written with remarkable poetic ability, and exhibit quickness of fancy, variety of thought, and a great command of poetic language; but we cannot trace their connection with the central thoughts running through those to which we have already referred. We have said enough, however, to draw the attention of the lovers of true poetry to Mr. Buchanan’s first ambitious effort. Some fault may be found with him in his choice of subjects, and in the somewhat frequent extravagance of his language; both are the results of youth, and as his imagination sobers, and his intellect gains greater experience, he will find subjects of a more homely, but not less poetic character, which he will imbue with less flashing, but more enduring colours. The faults of these poems are, in so young a man, an earnest of future excellence, for they are the faults not of dullness but of genius. Mr. Buchanan will find plenty of critics to point out and exaggerate these, and we hope he will, in the execution of future labours, attempt to avoid them. We have found so much pleasure in perusing the best portions of his book, that we do not undertake the thankless task, but conclude by heartily recommending “Undertones” to the studious attention of our readers.

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Birmingham Daily Post (1 August, 1864 - Issue 1893)

     The Society for the Encouragement of the Fine Arts has awarded its silver medal to Mr. Robert Buchanan, for “Undertones.” The same author has in the press a volume of Pastorals.

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Lloyd’s Weekly Newspaper (3 September, 1865 - Issue 1189)

LITERATURE.
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UNDERTONES.

     We recently directed the attention of our readers to the poems of Mr. Robert Buchanan, when we found them the subject of sound analytical criticism in the Fortnightly Review. Mr. Buchanan has now issued a new edition of his poetic utterances. Into some of these he has breathed a new ardour. Where he has retouched he has embellished. Moreover, he has made some additions to his already noble collection. One, indeed, is not unlikely to last as the finest expression of his genius. It is called “The Syren.” The spirit is an etherial creature, who draws the bewitched man of earth, Eumolpus, through bright and happy visions of the bliss that is to be—to death and peace.

“Where is my country, and that vision olden?”

Eumolpus asks, minding him of the little Sicilian fishing-town where he was born. The Siren answers:—

I sang thee hither in thy bark to land
     With deftly warbled measure,
I wove a witch’s spell with fluttering hand,
     Till thou wert drunken, Dearest, with much pleasure.
At hush of noon I had thee at my knee,
     And round thy finger pink I wound a curl,
     And singing smiled beneath with teeth of pearl,
Of what had been, what was, and what should be
Sang dying ditties three!
And lo! thy blood was ravished with the theme;
And lo! thy face was pale with drowsy dream,
While stooping low, with rich lips tremulous,
I kiss thee thus!—and thus!

EUMOLPUS.

Thy kisses trance me to a vision wan
     Of what hath been and nevermore will be.
O little fishing-town Sicilian,
     I can behold thee sitting by the sea!
O little red-tiled town where I was born!
     O days ere yet I sail’d from mortal ken!
Why did I launch upon the deep forlorn,
     Nor fish in shallow pools with simple men?
It was a charm; for while I rockt at ease
     Within our little bay,
There came a melody across the seas
     From regions far away;
And ah! I fell into a swooning sleep,
     And all the world had changed before I knew,—
And I awoke upon a glassy deep,
     With not a speck of land to break the view,
And tho’ I was alone, I did not weep,
     For I was singing too!
I sang! I sang! and with mine oars kept time
Unto the rude sweet rhyme,
And went a-sailing on into the west,
     Blown on by airs divine—
Singing for ever on a wild-eyed quest
     For that immortal minstrel feminine.
And night and day went past, until I lost
     All count of time, yet still did melodise;
     And sun and stars beheld me from their skies;
And ships swam by me, from whose decks storm-tost
     Rude seamen gazed with terror-glazëd eyes.
And still I found not her for whom I sought,
     Yet smiled without annoy—
To ply the easy oar, and take no thought,
     And sing, was such sweet joy!
Then tempest came, and to and from the sky
     I rose and fell in that frail bark of mine,
While the snake Lightning, with its blank bright eye,
     Writhed fierily in swift coils serpentine
     Along the slippery brine;
And there were days when dismal sobbing Rain
Made melancholy music for the brain,
And hours when I shriek’d out and wept in woe,
     Prison’d about by chilly still affright,
While all around dropt hushëd flakes of Snow
     Melting and mingling down blue chasms of night.
Yet evermore, I heard that voice sublime
     Twining afar its weirdly woven song,
And ever, evermore, mine oars kept time,
And evermore I utterëd in song
     My yearnings sad or merry, faint or strong.
Ah me! my love for her afar away,
My yearning and my burning night and day!
In dreams alone, I met her in still lands,
     And knelt in tears before her,
And could not sing, but only wring mine hands,
     Adore her and implore her!
     *          *          *          *          *          *
Yet day and night sped on, and I grew old
     Before I knew; and lo!
My hands were wither’d, on my bosom cold
     There droopt a beard of snow,—
And raising hands I shriek’d, I cried a curse
     On that weird voice that twinëd me from home
And echoes of the awful universe
     Answer’d me; and the deep with lips of foam
Mock’d me and spat upon me; and the things
     That people ocean rose and threaten’d ill,
Yea also air-born harpies waving wings,
     Because I could not sing to charm them still.
I was alone, the shadow of a man,
     Haunting the trackless waste of waves forlorn,
Blown on by pitiless rains and vapours wan,
Plaining for that small town Sicilian,
     Where, in the sweet beginning, I was born!

THE SIREN.

Ah, weep not, Dearest! lean upon my breast,
     While sunset darkens stilly,
And Dian poises o’er the slumberous west
     Her silver sickle chilly;
The eyes of heaven are opening, the leaves
     Fold silver-dewy round the closing roses,
In lines of foam the breaking billow heaves,
Each thing that gladdens and each thing that grieves
     Dip slow to sweet reposes.

EUMOLPUS.

O voice that lured me on, I know thee now!
     O melancholy eyes, ye mildly beam!
O kiss, thy touch is dewy on my brow!
     Sweet Spirit of my dream!

THE SIREN.

     Name thy love, and I am she,
     Name thy woe, and look on me,
     Name the weary melody
     That led thee hither o’er the sea,—
     Then call to mind my ditties three
Of what hath been, what is, and what shall be!
     *          *          *          *          *          *

EUMOLPUS.

Thou art the gentle witch that men call Death!
     Ah, Beauteous, I am weary, and would rest!

THE SIREN.

Lie very softly, Sweet, and let thy breath
     Fade calmly on my breast!
Call me Love or call me Fame,
     Call me Death or Poesy,
Call me by whatever name
     Seemeth sweetest unto thee:—
I anoint thee, I caress thee;
With my dark reposes bless thee,
I redeem thee, I possess thee!
I can never more forsake thee!
     Slumber, slumber, peacefully,
     Slumber calm and dream of me,
Till I touch thee, and awake thee!

     There is, in this, imagination of the highest order. Mr. Robert Buchanan has his place of honour in the great band of British poets.

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Book Reviews - Poetry continued

Idyls and Legends of Inverburn (1865) to Poems (1866)