ROBERT WILLIAMS BUCHANAN (1841 - 1901)

THE BALLAD OF MARY THE MOTHER

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THE BALLAD OF MARY

THE MOTHER

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SPECIAL NOTICE.—It has been decided, for obvious reasons,
not to forward copies of this book to the Press for review.
Editors who desire to notice the work, however, can procure
copies by written application to the Publisher, 36, Gerrard
Street, Shaftesbury Avenue, London, W.

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THE BALLAD OF MARY

THE MOTHER

A Christmas Carol

BY

ROBERT BUCHANAN

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“SAY,—GOD IS ONE, THE EVERLASTING GOD; HE BEGETTETH NOT,
AND HE IS NOT BEGOTTEN”—The Koran.

                                                           —John ii., 4.
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LONDON

ROBERT BUCHANAN

36, GERRARD STREET, SHAFTESBURY AVENUE, W.

1897

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LONDON:
PRINTED BY A. BONNER,
1 & 2, TOOK’S COURT, CHANCERY LANE, E.C.

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CONTENTS.

                                                                                                                             PAGE

“SHEPHERDS, WAKE, IT IS CHRISTMAS-TIDE . . . .”     vii

THE BALLAD OF MARY THE MOTHER     ...      ...           1

AD MADONNAM       ...     ...      ...     ...      ...     ...        103

A CATECHISM           ...      ...     ...      ...     ...      ...       115

ANTIPHONES             ...      ...     ...      ...     ...      ...       127

L’ENVOI                       ...     ...      ...     ...      ...     ...      141

PROSE NOTE               ...     ...      ...     ...      ...     ...      147

[Notes:
“Say: He is Allah, the One and Only; Allah, the Eternal, Absolute; He begetteth not, nor is He begotten; And there is none like unto Him.” (Holy Qur'an, Chapter 112, verses 1-4)
The biblical quote (in Greek) is from the Gospel of John, 2:4: “Jesus saith unto her, Woman, what have I to do with thee?”

I have been unable (so far) to find any contemporary reviews of The Ballad of Mary the Mother. Whether this is due to Buchanan’s decision not to send out review copies, or whether it is the nature of the poem itself, I do not know. Archibald Stodart-Walker in The Poet of Modern Revolt, after summarisng the poem, wrote:

     “This is a hasty view of a poem written with more searching of heart, we conceive, than anything the poet had yet ventured. The blessed sanctity of motherhood, which has always stood high in the creed of the poet, is made the theme of the ballad, and the uselessness of the whole aspiration, together with the human misery it evoked, has touched the poet to speak these words, despite all temptation to the contrary. From a poetical point of view, ‘The Ballad of Mary the Mother’ stands high, in our opinion, amongst the poet’s best work. For its very fearlessness of expression, combined with its simplicity of language, a simplicity which faithfully reflects the spirit and tone of the Gospel, it remains an important contribution to the poetical literature of religion. There is none of the fiery rhetoric of ‘The Wandering Jew,’ little of the mysticism of ‘The Book of Orm’ and ‘The City of Dream,’ or even of the ballad of the same metre, ‘The Ballad of Judas Iscariot’; but from its faithfulness to Eastern colour, its remarkable poetic reproduction of the scriptural records, and its never-halting metre, the poem must be regarded as part of the vanguard of Mr. Buchanan’s endeavour.”

John A. Cassidy in Robert W. Buchanan (p. 118), introduces his précis of the poem with the following:

     “The theme of The Ballad of Mary the Mother is the sublimity of mother-love, but here also is the strain of the outcast. In this case, the outcast is Buchanan himself; he is cast out by other men because he cannot accept Christ as the Son of God. The story of Jesus, as Buchanan sees it, is what he presents in one of the most startling and powerful of all his poems.”

In my own opinion, it is the best of Buchanan’s long religious poems - perhaps because it is not too long - Buchanan keeps to his theme and does not wander. There is also a sense (as Cassidy points out) of a personal connection between this retelling of the life of Jesus, through his mother’s eyes, with Buchanan’s own life and his relationship with his mother. The death of Buchanan’s mother seemed to affect him much more than the deaths of his father, his wife, and his friends, David Gray and Roden Noel. Coming just a few months after his bankruptcy in 1894, one wonders whether Buchanan blamed himself for her death. Although I would not press the comparison too far, I do think that one can discern feelings of both grief and guilt in The Ballad of Mary the Mother which contribute to its power. ‘Remarkable’, ‘startling’ and ‘powerful’ and for some  reason, totally forgotten.]

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