ROBERT WILLIAMS BUCHANAN (1841 - 1901)

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THE BOOK OF ORM

ormbacon
ormtitle

THE BOOK OF ORM

A Prelude to the Epic

 

 

BY ROBERT BUCHANAN

 

 

 

STRAHAN & CO., PUBLISHERS

56 LUDGATE HILL, LONDON
1870

 

 

LONDON:
PRINTED BY VIRTUE AND CO.,
CITY ROAD.

 

 

CONTENTS.
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                                                                                                                                                           PAGE.

INSCRIPTION TO F. W. C.

THE BOOK OF ORM.

“The Book of the Visions seen by Orm the Celt”  

 

I. FIRST SONG OF THE VEIL  

     1. The Veil Woven

     2. Earth the Mother

     3. Children of Earth  

     4. The Wise Men

 

II. THE MAN AND THE SHADOW

     1. The Shadow  

     2. The Rainbow

 

III. SONGS OF CORRUPTION

     1. Phantasy  

     2. The Dream of the World without Death  

     3. Soul and Flesh

 

IV. THE SOUL AND THE DWELLING  

 

V. SONGS OF SEEKING  

     1. “O Thou whose Ears incline unto my Singing”    

     2. Quest  

     3. The Happy Earth

     4. O unseen One!

     5. World’s Mystery

     6. The Cities  

     7. The Priests

     8. The Lamb of God

     9. Doom

     10. God’s Dream  

     11. Flower of the World  

     12. O Spirit!

 

VI. THE LIFTING OF THE VEIL

     1. Orm’s Vision

     2. The Face and the World  

     3. Orm’s Awakening  

 

VII. CORUISKEN SONNETS

     1. Lord, is it Thou?  

     2. We are Fatherless

     3. We are Children  

     4. When we are all Asleep    

     5. But the Hills will bear Witness  

     6. Desolate!  

     7. Lord, art Thou here?    

     8. God is beautiful  

     9. The Motion of the Mists  

     10. Coruisk  

     11. But whither?  

     12. God is pitiless  

     13. Yea, pitiless  

     14. Could God be judged!  

     15. The Hills on their Thrones  

     16. King Blaabhein  

     17. Blaabhein in the Mists  

     18. The fiery Birth of the Hills  

     19. The Changeless Hills    

     20. O Mountain Peak of a God

     21. God the Image

     22. The Footprints  

     23. We are Deathless  

     24. A Voice in the Whirlwind  

     25. Cry of the little Brook  

     26. The Happy Hearts of Earth  

     27. Father, forgive Thy Child  

     28. God’s Loneliness

     29. The Cup of Tears

     30. The Light of the World  

     31. Earth’s Eldest Born  

     32. What Spirit cometh?  

     33. Stay, O Spirit!  

     34. Quiet Waters  

 

VIII. THE CORUISKEN VISION; OR, THE LEGEND OF THE BOOK

 

IX. THE DEVIL’S MYSTICS

     1. The Inscription without  

     2. The Tree of Life

     3. The Seeds  

     4. Fire and Water; or, A Voice of the Flesh

     5. Sanitas  

     6. The Philosophers  

     7. Prayer from the Deeps  

     8. Homunculus; or, The Song of Deicides  

     9. Roses  

     10. Hermaphroditus

     11. After  

     12. His Prayer  

 

X. THE VISION OF THE MAN ACCURST  

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__________

 

     *** Continued ill health compels the omission of two poems—”A Rune found in the Starlight,” and “The Song of Heaven”—which, although written, cannot at present be rendered perfect for press. Section IX., too, is incomplete, wanting the all-important “Devil’s Dirge,” which, however, will be added in a future edition.—R.B.

 

[Notes:

The first edition of The Book Of Orm was published in 1870 by Strahan & Co. The 1882 Chatto & Windus edition is identical apart from the subtitle, “A Prelude to the Epic”, which only occurs on the title page of the first edition.

The first quote is the Student’s Prayer of Sir Francis Bacon (1561-1626).
The second quote, in Greek, is the final line of the Orphic hymn, ‘To The Sun’: And bless thy suppliants with a life divine.

Faithful defender, and the eye of right,
Of steeds the ruler, and of life the light:
With founding whip four fiery steeds you guide,
When in the car of day you glorious ride.
Propitious on these mystic labours shine,
And bless thy suppliants with a life divine.
     The Hymns of Orpheus, The Initiations of Orpheus - VII: To The Sun
l. 25-30, trans. Thomas Taylor (1792).

(I would like to thank the forum members on the Translatum site for helping me to identify this quotation).

A revised version of The Book of Orm was included in Volume III of the 1874 Poetical Works (H. S. King) in which ‘Section VII: The Coruisken Sonnets’ was separated from ‘The Book of Orm’ and ‘Section VIII: The Coruisken Vision; or, the Legend of the Book’ was omitted entirely. This arrangement was followed in the 1884 edition of The Poetical Works of Robert Buchanan. In this revised version, Bacon’s ‘Student’s Prayer’ is retained but the Orpheus quote is omitted, replaced by the following:

     ‘To vindicate the ways of God to man.’—MILTON.

     ‘God’s Mystery will I vindicate, the Mystery of the Veil and of the Shadow; yea, also Death and Sorrow, God’s divine Angels on all earths; and I will vindicate the Soul, that the Soul may vindicate the Flesh; and all these things shall vindicate Evil, proving God’s mercy to His creatures, great and small.’—A RUNE FOUND IN THE STARLIGHT.

The Milton quote is incorrect. Presumably Buchanan confused line 26 of Book I of John Milton’s Paradise Lost ( “And justify the ways of God to men.”) with line 16 of Epistle I of Alexander Pope’s An Essay on Man (“But vindicate the ways of God to man.”).

What in me is dark
Illumin, what is low raise and support;
That to the highth of this great Argument
I may assert Eternal Providence,
And justifie the wayes of God to men.
     Paradise Lost, Bk. I, l. 22-26 (1667) - John Milton (1608-74)

Eye Nature’s walks, shoot folly as it flies,
And catch the manners living as they rise;
Laugh where we must, be candid where we can,
But vindicate the ways of God to man.
     An Essay on Man, Epistle I: Of the Nature and State of Man, With Respect to the Universe, l. 13-16 (1732) - Alexander Pope (1688-1744)

Although Buchanan quotes ‘A Rune Found in the Starlight’, the poem itself does not appear in this revised version of ‘The Book of Orm’ and neither does the other poem referred to in his note to the first edition, ‘Devil’s Dirge’.]

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