ROBERT WILLIAMS BUCHANAN (1841 - 1901)

THE BOOK OF ORM

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.

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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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