BY DUGALD BUCHANAN.
(English Translation.)
WHEN we gave the last instalment of Dugald Buchanan’s Diary we promised our readers samples of his poems translated into English verse. We give now his poem on “The Skull,” translated very admirably by the late Dr. John Stuart Blackie. Though Professor Blackie was not a pattern to follow in some other ways, he made an excellent translation in the present case. Buchanan’s poems, unlike his Diary, were originally written in Gaelic, but they are all translated into English verse. There are several translations of “The Skull,” but we give Blackie’s as being the nearest in spirit and translation to the original which is to be found. English readers will find in this translation the Buchanan poetic ring, and although it lacks the original flow of the Gaelic original, yet it presents an exceptionally good imitation of it. We may in future give further samples of these poems or hymns in English verse.
A. M’K.
I sat all alone
By a cold grey stone,
And behold a skull lay on the ground!
I took in my hand,
And pitiful scanned
Its ruin, all round and round.
Without colour or ken,
Or notice of men,
When a footstep may trample the ground;
A jaw without tooth,
And no tongue in the mouth,
And a throat with no function of sound.
In thy cheek is no red,
Smooth and cold is thy head,
Deaf thine ear when sweet music is nigh;
In thy nostril no breath,
And the savour of death
In dark hollow where beamed the bright eye.
No virtue now flashes
‘Neath eyelids and lashes,
No message of brightness is sped; But worms to and fro
Do busily go,
Where pictures of beauty were spread.
And the brain that was there
Into ashes of air
Is vanished, and now hath no mind To finish the plan
It so boldly began,
And left—a proud folly—behind.
From that blank look of thine
I gather no sign
Of thy life-tale, its shame or its glory;
Proud Philip’s great son
And his slave are as one,
When a skull is the sum of their story.
Thou who pliest the trade
With shovel and spade,
To make beds for the dead in the land,
Declare, if thou can,
Be it maiden or man
Whose skull I now hold in my hand.
A maiden wert thou,
Of bright eye and fair brow,
And a witchcraft of smiles in thy face?
And was thine the fine art
To enmesh the weak heart
Of each youth that might sigh for thy grace?
And what art thou now,
With no grace on thy brow,
And thy witchery turned to disgust?
Cry shame on black Death
That stopped thy fair breath,
And trampled thy bloom in the dust!
Or a lawyer wert thou,
Wise and true to thy vow,
To hold all offenders in awe,
Without favour or grudge
To weigh and to judge, And to keep the straight line of the law?
Or wert thou a knave,
A tool and a slave
To the rich who could buy thee with gold,
But no virtue couldst see
In the poor man’s plea,
And left him to starve in the cold?
If thou wert expert,
To refine and pervert,
Till right became wrong in thy hand
A court waits for thee
Where no fictions can be,
And only the truth may stand.
Or wert thou a leech,
Keen to know and to teach
All the pharmacy tabbed in science,
With a balm in thy hand
For each plague in the land,
Bidding death and disease defiance?
But, alack for the man
That so bravely could plan,
From disease and distemper to save;
In vain all his skill,
With potion and pill,
To respite himself from the grave!
Or a soldier wert thou,
With storm on thy brow,
On the sword of thy vengeance relying,
Careering with power,
In victory’s hour,
O’er heaps of the dead and the dying?
Was thy sword in thy sheath,
When confronted with death,
Or did thy heart faint in the day,
When the stout heart must yield,
To light swarms in the field,
And vile armies that creep through the clay?
No whit care the worms
For the strong man of arms,
On his brain they will banquet full well;
And the skull of the bold
Is a garrison hold
For the black-mantled beetle to dwell.
Some are digging beneath
The fence of thy teeth,
Thine ears some are boring within,
And some creeping out,
In a revelling rout,
Are spoiling the bloom of thy skin.
Or wert thou a lord
Of strong drink, at the board
Where the cup was the deepest to drain,
With no heaven but this,
To wallow in bliss,
With the ferment of wine in thy brain?
And did oaths at thy board
Sweetest music accord
To thy filthy carousers and thee, Till your senses were drowned,
And you reeled on the ground,
More swinish than swine may be?
Or wert thou a man
Of the temperate clan,
With the gentle control of the brain
To reason thy whim,
When passions o’erbrim,
And a king in thy kingdom to reign?
Or wert thou a glutton,
To gorge and to fatten
Thy carcass unseasoned by soul,
In thy belly to find
A god to thy mind,
And a worship in draining the bowl?
Now the belly, thy god,
Must rot in the sod,
With the cold ooze dripping round thee,
Thy teeth may not bite,
Nor thy tongue taste delight,
Where the fetters of death have bound thee.
Or wert thou a man
The chief of thy clan,
The broad-acred lord of the soil,
A help still at hand
To the good in the land,
But a rod and reproof to the vile?
Or was it thy plan,
A hard-faced man,
Thy people to grind and to flay,
To exact to the letter,
Thy right from thy debtor,
While Mercy cried out for delay?
And never from thee,
In the pride of degree,
Could the old man’s voice bring a tear,
As he stood in the air
With his bald head bare,
And the sharp east wind in his ear.
But now the poor thrall
Waits not in thy hall,
Forced honour and homage to pay;
Death loved the poor man,
When he bravely began
To level thy pride with the clay.
Or wert thou a teacher
Of truth, and a preacher,
With message of mercy to tell,
With an arm swift and strong
To pull back the throng,
That headlong were plunging to hell?
Or wert thou a man
Of the moderate clan,
To shepherd the sheep at thy leisure?
If the fleece were but thine,
Old Reynard might dine
On the lambs of his flock at his pleasure.
But woe for thy doom
When the judgment shall come,
And the eye of the Master shall find thee,
To cast the amount
Of thy hollow account,
When the fetters of death shall bind thee!
Or wert thou a head,
The hothouse and bed
Of evil devices, uncaring
For statute or law
To temper with awe
The restless career of thy daring?
A forger of lies,
And the rumour that flies
On the pinions of calumny strong;
With lips of deceit
And a smile bitter-sweet,
And the poison of asps on thy tongue?
But now still in death,
With no voice to give breath,
That tongue shall no more be offender;
While maggots shall go
In thy mouth to and fro,
And gnaw at the root of thy slander.
And if thou didst go
All sin-laden so,
With a lie in thy throat, to the tomb;
The cold grave shall be
The sole heaven for thee
Till the trumpet shall call thee to doom.
Like an ugly old toad,
From thy miry abode
Thou shalt crawl to reproof of the day; To encounter thy God
When He comes with a rod,
The reward of thy doings to pay.
O then in thine ear,
With voice sharp and clear,
The Judge shall thy doom deliver,
With devils to dwell
In the furnace of hell, And his curse on thy head for ever.
Nor deem that the fire
Shall kindly conspire
To ashes unfeeling to turn thee,
Thy flesh and thy bones
Shall be hardened to stones, And the flame that shall scorch may not burn thee!
Or wert thou a wight
That strove for the right,
With God for thy guide in thy doing,
Though now thou lie there,
All bleached and bare,
In the blast a desolate ruin.
From the tomb thou shalt rise
And mount to the skies,
When the trump of the judgment shall bray;
Thy body of sin
Thou shalt slip like a skin,
And cast all corruption away.
Thy form shall be bright,
As the fair lady Light,
When in redness of morn she advances,
Like stars when they shine,
Thy far-seeing eyne
Shall pierce through the dim with their glances.
Thy mouth shall o’erbrim
From God with the hymn
Of His praise in the high habitations;
He will open thine ear
In rapture to hear
The pæan of deathless ovations!
When in glory divine
The Redeemer shall shine,
The hosts of His people to gather,
When the trumpet hath blared,
Like an eagle repaired,
Thou shalt rise to the home of thy Father.
He shall greet thee His own,
From the light of the throne,
Whence joyfulness flows like a river;
Thou shalt bloom in his sight,
Without blast, without blight,
In an Eden of glory for ever.
O listen and learn,
And timefully turn,
From delusions that fondly deceive you!
While the Saviour stands
With welcoming hands,
And a door open wide to receive you!