ROBERT WILLIAMS BUCHANAN (1841 - 1901)

LONDON POEMS

LONDON POEMS

ALEXANDER STRAHAN, PUBLISHER

LONDON, .    .    .    .    .    .    .    .    .    .    .    .    148 Strand

NEW YORK,  .    .    .    .    .    .    .    .    .    .    .    139 Grand Street

LONDON POEMS

BY ROBERT BUCHANAN

AUTHOR OF
“IDYLS AND LEGENDS OF INVERBURN,” “UNDERTONES,” ETC.

ALEXANDER STRAHAN, PUBLISHER
LONDON AND NEW YORK
1866

TO

WILLIAM HEPWORTH DIXON.

“Nostrorum sermonum candide judex. . . .
Curantem quidquid dignum sapiente bonoque est.
Non Tu corpus eras sine pectore.”
                                                         HORACE, Epp. I. 4.

__________

     MY DEAR DIXON,—This book is inscribed to you; and lest you should ask wherefore, I will refresh your memory. Seven years ago, when I was an ambitious lad in Scotland, and when the north-easter was blowing coldly on me, you sent me such good words as cheered and warmed me. You were one of two (the gentle, true, and far-seeing George Henry Lewes was the other) who first believed that I was fitted for noble efforts. Since then you have known me better, and abode by your first hope. Nor have you failed to exhibit the virtue, not possessed by one writer in a hundred, of daring to express publicly your confidence in an unacknowledged author.
     One word concerning the present volume. “London Poems” are the last of what I may term my “poems of   probation,”—wherein I have fairly hinted what I am trying to assimilate in life and thought. However much my method may be confounded with the methods of other writers, I am sure to get quartered (to my cost, perhaps) on my own merits by and by.
     Accept these poems,—given under a genuine impulse, and not merely in compliment. Of your fine qualities I will say nothing. Your candour may offend knaves and your reticence mislead fools; but be happy in your goodness, and in the loving homage of those dearest to you.—And believe me,

                                                                                                   Always your Friend,

                                                                                                                           ROBERT BUCHANAN.

     BEXHILL, SUSSEX, June 1866.

[Notes:
William Hepworth Dixon (1821-1870), historian and travel-writer, was the editor of the Athenæum from 1853 to 1869.
The Latin quotation in the dedication is extracted from the following passage in Horace’s Epistles:

Albi, nostrorum sermonum candide iudex,
quid nunc te dicam facere in regione Pedana?
Scribere quod Cassi Parmensis opuscula uincat,
an tacitum siluas inter reptare salubris,
curantem quicquid dignum sapiente bonoque est?
Non tu corpus eras sine pectore; di tibi formam,
di tibi diuitias dederunt artemque fruendi.

Albius, kind critic of my satires, say,
What do you down at Pedum far away?
Are you composing what will dim the shine
Of Cassius' works, so delicately fine,
Or sauntering, calm and healthful, through the wood,
Bent on such thoughts as suit the wise and good?
No brainless trunk is yours: a form to please,
Wealth, wit to use it, Heaven vouchsafes you these.

Translation by John Conington. M.A. ]

CONTENTS.
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The Additional ‘London Poems’

The Chatto & Windus 1884 edition of The Poetical Works of Robert Buchanan includes several additional poems in the ‘London Poems’ section (and assigns the Miscellaneous poems elsewhere). I have added these extra ‘London Poems’ at the conclusion of the original 1866 version.

Additional ‘London Poems’ from The Poetical Works of Robert Buchanan (1884)

Several of these additional poems (The Politician’, ‘To the Moon’, ‘Spring Song in the City’ and ‘The City Asleep’) were originally published as a series of ‘London Lyrics’ in London Society from January 1868 to March 1869. Three others in the series were not republished and are included in the Poems From Other Sources section of the site:

London Lyrics: A Fashionable Love Affair

London Lyrics: A Drawing-Room Ballad

London Lyrics: The Faces

Finally (although chronologically this should be first), Robert Buchanan published an earlier series, under the title ‘London Poems’, which ran from December 1860 to February 1862 in Temple Bar. There were nine poems in all, none of which were included in the 1866 version of London Poems or any subsequent collections. They are also available in the ‘Poems From Other Sources’ section of the site:

London Poems I: Temple Bar

London Poems II: The Dead

London Poems III: Outcasts

London Poems IV: The Destitute

London Poems V: Belgravia

London Poems VI: A City Preacher

London Poems VII: The River

London Poems VIII: Christmas In The City

London Poems IX: Haunted London

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Reviews of London Poems

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