ROBERT WILLIAMS BUCHANAN (1841 - 1901)

WAYSIDE POSIES

Wayside Posies: Original Poems of the Country Life was a Christmas gift-book, published by George Routledge & Sons in December 1866. The book was illustrated by G. J. Pinwell, J. W. North and Frederick Walker, engraved by the Brothers Dalziel, and was edited by Robert Buchanan. Wayside Posies contains 37 anonymous poems, most of which are probably the work of Buchanan himself. A review of the book in The Examiner of 8th Decmber, 1866 contains the following:

“On the whole, this handsome gift-book is entitled to a special rank for its originality, the verse being all new, and, barring a certain proportion of rubbish (like the poem called ‘The Goose’), sufficiently agreeable. The greater part of it is understood to be by Mr Robert Buchanan, who contrives in a few prefatory lines to display several of those defects of taste which are likely to impede his progress in the world. He succeeds less in short pieces of occasional verse than in pathetic narrative, but there is much here that is delicately conceived and gracefully expressed.”

This is the Preface:

The only poem mentioned by Buchanan, ‘Reaping’, was the work of William Freeland, and was later published in his collection, A Birth Song: And Other Poems (Glasgow: James Maclehose and Sons, 1882). Of the other poems in the collection, I have not found any evidence to link any of them to other poets, but, of course, this is hardly proof that they all belong to Buchanan. So, the selection below are those poems which are definitely Buchanan’s, plus a few more which for various reasons, may possibly be Buchanan’s. Of course, apart from ‘Reaping’, the whole collection is most probably due to Buchanan, but I think more evidence is needed. All the poems from Wayside Posies were later included (still anonymous) in another Routledge gift book, Picture Posies, published in 1874.

Wayside Posies is available to download from the Internet Archive in a variety of formats, or can be accessed here.

CONTENTS.

1. The Shadow. A Boy’s Thought.

2. The Bit o’ Garden.

[Sometimes, the internet can be a wonderful thing. I put the title into google and up popped this - Buchanan’s manuscript of ‘The Bit o’ Garden’.

It was on the Nudelman Rare Books site and is described thus:

“Buchanan, Robert- ALS
Holograph Poem, "The Bit o' Garden," Four Stanzas, 24 Lines, with Two Corrections

Written in fountain pen by Buchanan on two ruled octavo sheets (in landscape form), his poem, "The Bit o' Garden," with two corrections from what appears to be a last manuscript before submitting poem for publication. The poem appeared in Buchanan's book in 1867, Wayside Posies, published by George Routledge. The poem appears in the book with the complete copy as written out here by Buchanan in holograph form, with both corrections appearing in print. Very good. Scarce.

Price: $525.00 Item #2834”

Unfortunately, a little too expensive for my pocket, so the picture will have to suffice.]

THE BIT O’ GARDEN.

THE bit o’ garden’s tidier now than ever ’t was before;
The fruit trees trim, and all in bloom, and roses at the door,
Aye, all looks sweet—’t is summer-time—the garden plots are bright,
And my old man is busy there from morning until night;
Yet here, indoors, ’t is weary now, and all for Lizzie’s sake,—
But for the bit o’ garden ground, my old man’s heart would break.

For Lizzie was his darling pride, the treasure of his life:
’T was even pain to think our girl might leave to be a wife;
And now, though even that was sad, ’t is bitterer, sorer pain
To think she should be here and know we cannot part again;
And then to think the bitterest sound at our fireside should be
The crying of the little one upon our daughter’s knee!

Oh! weary was the waiting while our daughter was away;
The bit o’ garden ground ran wild; we listened night and day;
And then that night when all the town was lying in its rest,
We saw her standing at the door, her baby at her breast,
And my old man leapt up, and cried, and kissed her on the cheek,
And the kiss was bitterer to bear than words the tongue can speak!

And all the shame is put away: there’s peace upon her face;
But though we love to hear her laugh, the laugh seems out o’ place:
She is the dearest daughter still that ever father had,
But there is quiet in the house, and, somehow, all seems sad,—
’T is weary now with over-love, and all for Lizzie’s sake:
But for the bit o’ garden ground, my old man’s heart would break!

3. ‘At the Grindstone; or, a Home View of the Battle-field’.

[This poem is attributed to Buchanan in three other books, all published in America:
Public and Parlor Readings: Prose and Poetry for the use of Reading Clubs and for Public and Social Entertainment, edited by Lewis B. Monroe (Boston: Lee and Shepard, Publishers, 1874). The book contains three poems by Buchanan, ‘The Starling’, ‘Langley Lane’ and ‘At The Grindstone; or, a Home View of the Battle-field’.

Forty Friday Afternoons by Seymour Eaton and Florence A. Blanchard (Boston and Chicago: New England Publishing Co., 1892): the poem (by Robert Buchanan) is listed with others under the heading, ‘Battles in Verse’ on page 23.

An Index to Poetry and Recitations, edited by Edith Granger, A. B. (Chicago: A. C. McClurg & Compnay, 1904) lists 41 poems by Buchanan, including ‘At the Grindstone; or, a Home View of the Battle-field’.

Of course, this may just mean that the poem was wrongly attributed to Buchanan in the first place as the editor of Wayside Posies and the mistake was then repeated. Still, you can’t expect every title in google to turn up the original manuscript.]

AT THE GRINDSTONE;

OR, A HOME VIEW OF THE BATTLE-FIELD.

GRIND, Billie, grind! And so the war’s begun?
     Flash, bayonets! cannons, call! dash down their pride!
If I was younger, I would grip a gun,
     And die a-field, as better men have died:
I’d face three Frenchmen, lad, and feel no fear,
With this old knife that we are grinding here!

Why, I’m a kind of radical, and saw
     Some fighting in the riots long ago;
But, Lord, am I the sort of chap to draw
     A sword against old Mother England? No!
England for me, with all her errors, still—
I hate them foreigners, and always will!

There was our Johnie, now!—as kind a lad
     As ever grew in England; fresh and fair!
To see him in his regimentals clad,
     With honest rosy cheeks and yellow hair,
Was something, Billy, worthy to be seen;
But Johnie’s gone—murdered at seventeen!

None of your fighting sort, but mild and shy,
     Soft-hearted, full of wench-like tenderness,
Without the heart, indeed, to hurt a fly;
     But fond, you see, of music and of dress:
We could not hold him in, dear lad, and so
He heard the fife, and would a-soldiering go.

And it was pleasant for a time to see
     Johnie, our little drummer, go and come,
Holding his head up, proudly, merrily,
     Happy with coat o’ red, and hat, and drum.
That was in peace; but war broke out one day,
And Johnie’s regiment was called away.

He went! he went! he could not choose but go!
     And me and my old woman wearied here:
We knew that men must fall and blood must flow,
     But still had many a thought to lighten fear:
Those Russian men could never be so bad
As kill or harm so very small a lad;

A lad that should have been at school or play!
     A little baby in a coat o’ red!
What! touch our little Johnie? No, not they!
     Why, they had little ones themselves, we said.
Billie, the little lad we loved so well
Was slain among the very first that fell!

Mark that! A bullet from a murderous gun
     Singled him out, and struck him to the brain:
He fell—our boy, our joy, our little one—
     His bright hair dark with many a bloody stain,
His clammy hands clenched tight, his eyes o’ brown
Looking through smoke and fire to Stamford town!

What, call that war! to slay a helpless child
     Who never, never hurt a living thing!
Butchered, for what we know, too, while he smiled
     On the strange light all round him, wondering!
Grind, Billie, grind! call, cannons! bayonets, thrust!
Would we were grinding all our foes to dust!

Bah! Frenchman, Turk, or Russian—all alike!
     All eaten up with slaughter, sin, and slavery!
Little care they what harmless hearts they strike—
     They murder little lads, and call it bravery!
Down with them when they cross our path, I say:
Give me old England’s manhood and fair play!

4. Shadow and Substance.

[I’ve found no Buchanan connection to this poem, but in a letter from Buchanan to the Brothers Dalziel of May 22nd, 1867, he makes the following suggestion:

“If you had by you any very fine pictures, & would send me proofs, I might find something by me to suit them; & that would save a little trouble.”

This would have been for their final collaboration, North Coast, and other Poems, but the elaborate illustration for the rather thin two stanza poem, makes me wonder if the same procedure was used for Wayside Posies.]

SHADOW AND SUBSTANCE.

THE sun is bright in the meadow,
         The Spring flowers blow,
Nell stands by the stream, and her shadow
         Glimmers below;
And I try to muster the daring
         To creep more near,
And whisper the passion past bearing
         Into her ear.

Her eyelids droop while she fishes,
         Her eyes look down!—
But while I whispered my wishes,
         If Nell should frown,
I think I should turn to self-slaughter
         As something sweet,
And, embracing her shade in the water,
         Die at her feet!

5. Afloat On The Stream.

[’Afloat on the Stream’ is by Buchanan, sharing lines with ‘London Poems. VII. The River’ published in Temple Bar (September 1861):

“Beyond those clouds, the ocean’s lips
Are shady with returning ships,
And white with flying foam;” (‘The River)’

“Beyond those clouds the ocean’s lips
Are shady with the white-winged ships,
And bright with flying foam.” (‘Afloat on the Stream’)

“And looking down upon its face,
I fashion fancies of the place
From whence it singing flows,
Till underneath its blackened breast
I see a Naiad in her nest
Where the wild lily blows,
With glimpses of a mossy wood
Where hyacinths and harebells brood;

The country in its harvest trance,
The slanted sheaves, where gleaners dance,
Where haymakers carouse;
And, dreaming sweetly thus at will,
I hear the birds, and feel the still
Eye-music of green boughs.
Such pictures, different in degree,
The mighty River makes for me.”  (‘The River’)

“There, looking down upon its face,
We watch the water in the place
     From whence it singing flows,
And picture sweetly, while we rest,
A little Naiad in a nest,
     Where the wild lily blows.

Yonder there spreads the harvest scene,
The slanted sheaves, where gleaners glean
     And haymakers carouse:
Here, floating, dreaming, at our will,
We hear the water, feel the still
     Eye-music of green boughs.” (‘Afloat on the Stream’) ]

AFLOAT ON THE STREAM.

I.

THE town upon the river-side,
Wherein my love and I abide,
     Keeps many a hungry home:
Beyond those clouds the ocean’s lips
Are shady with the white-winged ships,
     And bright with flying foam.

Here the black barges darken down
Into the suburb, where the town
     Begins with lane and street;
Here are few flowers save human ones,
That blossom sickly: slowly runs
     The river at their feet.

Here, where the darkened sunlights fall
On haggard wives and children small,
     The river singing flows,
And, sometimes brightening unaware,
Flashing its silver in the air,
     It broadens as it goes.

And oft we launch our little boat,
And sweetly, quietly we float
     Toward the gates of morn;
Away from city, smoke, and sin,
Unto the solitude wherein
     The happy stream is born.

II.

Hither the sunshine cometh not,
But leafy branches shade the spot
     Where sleeps the baby stream;
And here with folded wings Love lies,—
We feel his breathing, and our eyes
     Meet in a happy dream.

There, looking down upon its face,
We watch the water in the place
     From whence it singing flows,
And picture sweetly, while we rest,
A little Naiad in a nest,
     Where the wild lily blows.

Yonder there spreads the harvest scene,
The slanted sheaves, where gleaners glean
     And haymakers carouse:
Here, floating, dreaming, at our will,
We hear the water, feel the still
     Eye-music of green boughs.

And all around are glimpses sweet
Of sunny slopes where white flocks bleat;
     Of many a quiet glade,
Where all is coolness, though above
The sunlight faints on clouds, that move
     Slowly and cast no shade.

III.

Downward at eventide go we:
The river, broadening to the sea,
     Sighs as we sit and muse;
The flitter-mice around us cry,
And far away the sunset sky
     Takes melancholy hues.

Past little villages we go,
With quaint old gable-ends that glow
     Still in the sunset’s fire;
And gliding through the shadows still,
Oft notice, with a lover’s thrill,
     The peeping of a spire.

Then silent in our little boat,
With downward-drooping eyes we float:
     All human joy and grief
Are hushed around us at this hour;
The silence flutters like a flower,
     And closes leaf by leaf.

The heart beats quick, the bosom sighs;
Westward we gaze, and in our eyes
     More pensive love-thoughts dawn;
For, from the amber sky afar,
The twilight of the lover’s star
     Is delicately drawn.

___

6. School.

7. On the Shore.

[‘On The Shore’ is by Buchanan and was subsequently published as ‘Sea Wash’ in Ballads of Life, Love, and Humour (1882).]

ON THE SHORE.

         WHEREFORE so cold, O day,
         That gleamest far away
O’er the dim line where mingle heaven and ocean,
         While fishing-boats lie nestled in the grey,
And the small wave gleams in its shoreward motion?
         Wherefore so cold, so cold?
         Oh say, dost thou behold
A face o’er which the rock-weed droopeth sobbing,
         A face just stirrèd within a sea-cave old
By the green water’s throbbing?

         Wherefore, O fisherman,
         So full of care and wan,
This weary, weary morning shoreward flying,
         While, stooping downward darkly, dost thou scan
That which below thee in thy boat is lying?
         Wherefore so full of care?
         What dost thou shoreward bear,
Caught in thy net’s moist meshes, as a token?
         Ah, can it be the ring of golden hair
Whereby my heart is broken?

         Wherefore so still, O sea,
         That washest wearilie
Under the lamp lit in the fisher’s dwelling,
         Holding the secret of thy deeps from me,
Whose heart would break so sharply at the telling?
         Wherefore so still, so still?
         Say, in thy sea-cave chill,
Floats she forlorn with foam-bells round her breaking,
         While the wet fisher lands and climbs the hill
To hungry babes awaking?

8. The Swallows.

[‘The Swallows’ is by Buchanan and was reprinted in Volume 2 of the 1874 King edition of The Poetical Works, Ballads of Life, Love, and Humour (1882) and the ‘London Poems (1866-70)’ section of the 1884 Chatto & Windus Poetical Works.]

THE SWALLOWS.

I.

     O CHURCHYARD in the shady gloom,
         What charm to please hast thou,
     That, seated on a broken tomb,
         I muse so oft, as now?
The dreary autumn woodland whispers nigh,
And in the distant lanes the village urchins cry.

     Thou holdest in thy sunless land
         Nought I have seen or known,
     No lips I ever kissed, no hand
         That ever clasped mine own;
And all is still and dreary to the eye,—
The broken tombs, dark walls, the patch of cloudy sky.

     And to the murmur that mine ears
         Catch from the distant lanes,
     Dimming mine eyes with dreamy tears,
         Slow, low, my heart refrains,
And the live grass creeps up from thy dead bones,
And crawls, with slimy stains, over thy grey grave-stones.

     The cries keep on, the minutes pass,
         Mine eyes are on the ground,
     The silent many-fingered grass
         Winds round, and round, and round:
I seem to see it live, and stir, and wind,
And gaze until a weight is heavy on my mind.

II.

     O churchyard in the shady gloom,
         What charm to please hast thou,
     That, seated on a broken tomb,
         I muse so oft as now?
Haply because I learn, with sad content,
How small a thing can make the whole world different!

     Among thy grave-stones worn and old,
         A sad sweet hour I pass,
     Where thickest from thy sunless mould
         Upsprings the sickly grass;
For, though the earth holds no sweet-smelling flower,
The swallows build their nests up in thy square grey tower.

     While, burthened by the life we bear,
         The dull and creeping woe,
     The mystery, the pain, the care,
         I watch thy grasses grow,
Sighing, I look to the dull autumn skies,
And, lo! my heart is cheered, and tears are in mine eyes.

     For here, where stillness, death, and dream,
         Brood over creeping things,
     Over mine eyes with quick bright gleam
         Shine little flashing wings,
And a strange wonder takes thy shady air,
And the deep life I breathe seems sweetened unaware!

___

9. Hope.

10. Spring.

11. The Journey’s End.

12. Reaping. [‘Reaping’ is by William Freeland.]

13. King Pippin.

14. By The Dove-cot.

15. The Nutting.

16. The Visions Of A City Tree.

17. The Goose.

_____

Wayside Posies - continued