Ban and Arriere Ban: A Rally of Fugitive Rhymes - Andrew Lang

‘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.

	PAGE
A Scot to Jeanne d’Arc	[1]
How they held the Bass for KingJames—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 ofWordsworth
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.

CONTENTS

ERRATUM

A SCOT TO JEANNE D’ARC