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Title: A drunk man looks at the thistle
Author: MacDiarmid, Hugh
Language: English
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A Drunk Man Looks At The Thistle
_BY THE SAME AUTHOR._
SANGSCHAW. (1925.) 5/-
PENNY WHEEP. (1926.) 5/-
IN PREPARATION.
TO CIRCUMJACK CENCRASTUS.
A Drunk Man Looks At
The Thistle
BY
HUGH M’DIARMID
AUTHOR OF ‘SANGSCHAW,’ ETC.
_Vast imbecile mentality of those
Who cannot tell a thistle from a rose,
This is for others._
—SACHEVERELL SITWELL.
WILLIAM BLACKWOOD & SONS LTD.
EDINBURGH AND LONDON
1926
_Printed in Great Britain_ _All Rights reserved_
_TO F. G. SCOTT._
Can ratt-rime and ragments o’ quenry
And recoll o’ Gillha’ requite
Your faburdoun, figuration, and gemmell,
And prick-sangs’ delight?
Tho’ you’ve cappilowed me in the reapin’
—And yours was a bursten kirn tae!—
Yet you share your advantage wi’ me
In the end o’ the day.
And my flytin’ and sclatrie sall be
Wi’ your fantice and mocage entwined
As the bauch Earth is wi’ the lift
Or fate wi’ mankind!
AUTHOR’S NOTE.
This gallimaufry is dedicated to my friend, Francis George Scott, the
composer, who suggested it, and to whom, during the course of writing it,
I have been further greatly indebted for co-operative suggestions and
for some of the most penetrating and comprehensive of modern European
criticism.
I would gratefully acknowledge, too, the assistance I have received from
my friend, Dr Pittendrigh Macgillivray, and from my wife, in the revision
of proofs.
To the Editor of ‘The Glasgow Herald’ I have to tender the customary
acknowledgements for his kindness in allowing me to republish here
certain portions of my poem which originally appeared in his columns.
Drunkenness has a logic of its own with which, even in these decadent
days, I believe a sufficient minority of my countrymen remain _au fait_.
I would, however, take the liberty of counselling the others, who have
no personal experience or sympathetic imagination to guide them, to be
chary of attaching any exaggerated importance, in relation to my book
as a whole, to such inadvertent reflections of their own sober minds
as they may from time to time—as in a distorting mirror—detect in these
pages, and of attempting, in, no doubt, a spirit of real helpfulness,
to confer, on the basis of these, a species of intelligibility foreign
to its nature, upon my poem. It would have been only further misleading
these good folks, therefore, if I had (as, arbitrarily enough at best, I
might have done) divided my poem into sections or in other ways supplied
any of those “hand-rails” which raise false hopes in the ingenuous minds
of readers whose rational intelligences are all too insusceptible of
realising the enormities of which “highbrows” of my type are capable—even
in Scotland.
I would suggest, on the other hand, if I may, that they should avoid
subtleties and simply persist in the pretence that my “synthetic Scots”
presents insuperable difficulties to understanding, while continuing to
espouse with all the impressiveness at their command the counter-claims
of “sensible poetry.”
The whole thing must, of course, be pronounced _more Boreali_.
H. M’D.
A DRUNK MAN LOOKS AT THE THISTLE.
I amna’ fou’ sae muckle as tired—deid dune.
It’s gey and hard wark’ coupin’ gless for gless
Wi’ Cruivie and Gilsanquhar and the like,
And I’m no’ juist as bauld as aince I wes.
The elbuck fankles in the coorse o’ time,
The sheckle’s no’ sae souple, and the thrapple
Grows deef and dour: nae langer up and doun
Gleg as a squirrel speils the Adam’s apple.
Forbye, the stuffie’s no’ the real Mackay.
The sun’s sel’ aince, as sune as ye began it,
Riz in your vera saul: but what keeks in
Noo is in truth the vilest “saxpenny planet.”
And as the worth’s gane doun the cost has risen.
Yin canna thow the cockles o’ yin’s hert
Wi’oot ha’en’ cauld feet noo, jalousin’ what
The wife’ll say (I dinna blame her fur’t).
It’s robbin’ Peter to pey Paul at least....
And a’ that’s Scotch aboot it is the name,
Like a’ thing else ca’d Scottish nooadays
—A’ destitute o’ speerit juist the same.
(To prove my saul is Scots I maun begin
Wi’ what’s still deemed Scots and the folk expect,
And spire up syne by visible degrees
To heichts whereo’ the fules ha’e never recked.
But aince I get them there I’ll whummle them
And souse the craturs in the nether deeps,
—For it’s nae choice, and ony man s’ud wish
To dree the goat’s weird tae as weel’s the sheep’s!)
Heifetz in tartan, and Sir Harry Lauder!
Whaur’s Isadora Duncan dancin’ noo?
Is Mary Garden in Chicago still
And Duncan Grant in Paris—and me fou’?
_Sic transit gloria Scotia_—a’ the floo’ers
O’ the Forest are wede awa’. (A blin’ bird’s nest
Is aiblins biggin’ in the thistle tho’?...
And better blin’ if’ts brood is like the rest!)
You canna gang to a Burns supper even
Wi’oot some wizened scrunt o’ a knock-knee
Chinee turns roon to say, “Him Haggis—velly goot!”
And ten to wan the piper is a Cockney.
No’ wan in fifty kens a wurd Burns wrote
But misapplied is a’body’s property,
And gin there was his like alive the day
They’d be the last a kennin’ haund to gie—
Croose London Scotties wi’ their braw shirt fronts
And a’ their fancy freen’s, rejoicin’
That similah gatherings in Timbuctoo,
Bagdad—and Hell, nae doot—are voicin’
Burns’ sentiments o’ universal love,
In pidgin’ English or in wild-fowl Scots,
And toastin’ ane wha’s nocht to them but an
Excuse for faitherin’ Genius wi’ _their_ thochts.
A’ _they’ve_ to say was aften said afore
A lad was born in Kyle to blaw aboot.
What unco fate mak’s _him_ the dumpin’-grun’
For a’ the sloppy rubbish they jaw oot?
Mair nonsense has been uttered in his name
Than in ony’s barrin’ liberty and Christ.
If this keeps spreedin’ as the drink declines,
Syne turns to tea, wae’s me for the _Zeitgeist_!
Rabbie, wad’st thou wert here—the warld hath need,
And Scotland mair sae, o’ the likes o’ thee!
The whisky that aince moved your lyre’s become
A laxative for a’ loquacity.
O gin they’d stegh their guts and haud their wheesht
I’d thole it, for “a man’s a man,” I ken,
But though the feck ha’e plenty o’ the “a’ that,”
They’re nocht but zoologically men.
I’m haverin’, Rabbie, but ye understaun’
It gets my dander up to see your star
A bauble in Babel, banged like a saxpence
’Twixt Burbank’s Baedeker and Bleistein’s cigar.
There’s nane sae ignorant but think they can
Expatiate on _you_, if on nae ither.
The sumphs ha’e ta’en you at your wird, and, fegs!
The foziest o’ them claims to be a—Brither!
Syne “Here’s the cheenge”—the star o’ Rabbie Burns.
Sma’ cheenge, “Twinkle, Twinkle.” The memory slips
As G. K. Chesterton heaves up to gi’e
“The Immortal Memory” in a huge eclipse,
Or somebody else as famous if less fat.
You left the like in Embro’ in a scunner
To booze wi’ thieveless cronies sic as me.
I’se warrant you’d shy clear o’ a’ the hunner
Odd Burns’ Clubs tae, or ninety-nine o’ them,
And haud your birthday in a different kip
Whaur your name isna’ ta’en in vain—as Christ
Gied a’ Jerusalem’s Pharisees the slip,
—Christ wha’d ha’e been Chief Rabbi gin he’d lik’t!—
Wi’ publicans and sinners to forgether,
But, losh! the publicans noo are Pharisees,
And I’m no’ shair o’ maist the sinners either.
But that’s aside the point! I’ve got fair waun’ert.
It’s no’ that I’m sae fou’ as juist deid dune,
And dinna ken as muckle’s whaur I am
Or hoo I’ve come to sprawl here ’neth the mune
That’s it! It isna me that’s fou’ at a’,
But the fu’ mune, the doited jade, that’s led
Me fer agley, or ’mogrified the warld.
—For a’ I ken I’m safe in my ain bed.
_Jean! Jean!_ Gin _she_’s no’ here it’s no’ _oor_ bed,
Or else I’m dreamin’ deep and canna wauken,
But it’s a fell queer dream if this is no’
A real hillside—and thae things thistles and bracken!
It’s hard wark haud’n by a thocht worth ha’en’
And harder speakin’t, and no’ for ilka man;
Maist Thocht’s like whisky—a thoosan’ under proof,
And a sair price is pitten on’t even than.
As Kirks wi’ Christianity ha’e dune,
Burns’ Clubs wi’ Burns—wi’ a’thing it’s the same,
The core o’ ocht is only for the few,
Scorned by the mony, thrang wi’ts empty name.
And a’ the names in History mean nocht
To maist folk but “ideas o’ their ain,”
The vera opposite o’ onything
The Deid ’ud awn gin they cam’ back again.
A greater Christ, a greater Burns, may come.
The maist they’ll dae is to gi’e bigger pegs
To folly and conceit to hank their rubbish on.
They’ll cheenge folks’ talk but no their natures, fegs!
I maun feed frae the common trough ana’
Whaur a’ the lees o’ hope are jumbled up;
While centuries like pigs are slorpin’ owre’t
Sall my wee ’oor be cryin’: “Let pass this cup?”
In wi’ your gruntle then, puir wheengin’ saul,
Lap up the ugsome aidle wi’ the lave,
What gin it’s your ain vomit that you swill
And frae Life’s gantin’ and unfaddomed grave?
I doot I’m geylies mixed, like Life itsel’,
But I was never ane that thocht to pit
An ocean in a mutchkin. As the haill’s
Mair than the pairt sae I than reason yet.
I dinna haud the warld’s end in my heid
As maist folk think they dae; nor filter truth
In fishy gills through which its tides may poor
For ony _animalculæ_ forsooth.
I lauch to see my crazy little brain
—And ither folks’—tak’n itsel’ seriously,
And in a sudden lowe o’ fun my saul
Blinks dozent as the owl I ken’t to be.
I’ll ha’e nae hauf-way hoose, but aye be whaur
Extremes meet—it’s the only way I ken
To dodge the curst conceit o’ bein’ richt
That damns the vast majority o’ men.
I’ll bury nae heid like an ostrich’s,
Nor yet believe my een and naething else.
My senses may advise me, but I’ll be
Mysel’ nae maitter what they tell’s....
I ha’e nae doot some foreign philosopher
Has wrocht a system oot to justify
A’ this: but I’m a Scot wha blin’ly follows
Auld Scottish instincts, and I winna try.
For I’ve nae faith in ocht I can explain,
And stert whaur the philosophers leave aff,
Content to glimpse its loops I dinna ettle
To land the sea serpent’s sel’ wi’ ony gaff.
Like staundin’ water in a pocket o’
Impervious clay I pray I’ll never be,
Cut aff and self-sufficient, but let reenge
Heichts o’ the lift and benmaist deeps o’ sea.
Water! Water! There was owre muckle o’t
In yonder whisky, sae I’m in deep water
(And gin I could wun hame I’d be in het,
For even Jean maun natter, natter, natter)....
And in the toon that I belang tae
—What tho’ts Montrose or Nazareth?—
Helplessly the folk continue
To lead their livin’ death!...
[1]_At darknin’ hings abune the howff
A weet and wild and eisenin’ air.
Spring’s spirit wi’ its waesome sough
Rules owre the drucken stramash there._
_And heich abune the vennel’s pokiness,
Whaur a’ the white-weshed cottons lie;
The Inn’s sign blinters in the mochiness,
And lood and shrill the bairnies cry._
_The hauflins ’yont the burgh boonds
Gang ilka nicht, and a’ the same,
Their bonnets cocked; their bluid that stounds
Is playin’ at a fine auld game._
_And on the lochan there, hauf-herted
Wee screams and creakin’ oar-locks soon’,
And in the lift, heich, hauf-averted,
The mune looks owre the yirdly roon’._
_And ilka evenin’, derf and serious
(Jean ettles nocht o’ this, puir lass),
In liquor, raw yet still mysterious,
A’e freend’s aye mirrored in my glass._
_Ahint the sheenin’ coonter gruff
Thrang barmen ding the tumblers doun
“In vino veritas” cry rough
And reid-een’d fules that in it droon._
_But ilka evenin’ fey and fremt
(Is it a dream nae wauk’nin’ proves?)
As to a trystin’-place undreamt,
A silken leddy darkly moves._
_Slow gangs she by the drunken anes,
And lanely by the winnock sits;
Frae’r robes, atour the sunken anes,
A rooky dwamin’ perfume flits._
_Her gleamin’ silks, the taperin’
O’ her ringed fingers, and her feathers
Move dimly like a dream wi’in,
While endless faith aboot them gethers._
_I seek, in this captivity,
To pierce the veils that darklin’ fa’
—See white clints slidin’ to the sea,
And hear the horns o’ Elfland blaw._
_I ha’e dark secrets’ turns and twists,
A sun is gi’en to me to haud,
The whisky in my bluid insists,
And spiers my benmaist history, lad._
_And owre my brain the flitterin’
O’ the dim feathers gangs aince mair,
And, faddomless, the dark blue glitterin’
O’ twa een in the ocean there._
_My soul stores up this wealth unspent,
The key is safe and nane’s but mine.
You’re richt, auld drunk impenitent,
I ken it tae—the truth’s in wine!_
The munelicht’s like a lookin’-glass,
The thistle’s like mysel’,
But whaur ye’ve gane, my bonnie lass.
Is mair than I can tell.
Were you a vision o’ mysel’,
Transmuted by the mellow liquor?
Neist time I glisk you in a glass,
I’se warrant I’ll mak’ siccar.
A man’s a clean contrairy sicht
Turned this way in-ootside,
And, fegs, I feel like Dr Jekyll
Tak’n guid tent o’ Mr Hyde....
Gurly thistle—hic—you canna
Daunton me wi’ your shaggy mien,
I’m sair—hic—needin’ a shave,
That’s plainly to be seen.
But what aboot it—hic—aboot it?
Mony a man’s been that afore.
It’s no’ a fact that in his lugs
A wund like this need roar!...
[2]_I hae forekent ye! O I hae forekent.
The years forecast your face afore they went.
A licht I canna thole is in the lift.
I bide in silence your slow-comin’ pace.
The ends o’ space are bricht: at last—oh swift!
While terror clings to me—an unkent face!_
_Ill-faith stirs in me as she comes at last,
The features lang forekent ... are unforecast.
O it gangs hard wi’me, I am forspent.
Deid dreams ha’e beaten me and a face unkent
And generations that I thocht unborn
Hail the strange Goddess frae my hert’s-hert torn!_...
Or dost thou mak’ a thistle o’ me, wumman? But for thee
I were as happy as the munelicht, withoot care,
But thocht o’ thee—o’ thy contempt and ire—
Turns hauf the warld into the youky thistle there,
Feedin’ on the munelicht and transformin’ it
To this wanrestfu’ growth that winna let me be.
The munelicht is the freedom that I’d ha’e
But for this cursèd Conscience thou hast set in me.
It is morality, the knowledge o’ Guid and Ill,
Fear, shame, pity, like a will and wilyart growth,
That kills a’ else wi’in its reach and craves
Nae less at last than a’ the warld to gi’e it scouth.
The need to wark, the need to think, the need to be,
And a’ thing that twists Life into a certain shape
And interferes wi’ perfect liberty—
These feed this Frankenstein that nae man can escape.
For ilka thing a man can be or think or dae
Aye leaves a million mair unbeen, unthocht, undune,
Till his puir warped performance is,
To a’ that micht ha’ been, a thistle to the mune.
It is Mortality itsel’—the mortal coil,
Mockin’ Perfection, Man afore the Throne o’ God.
He yet has bigged himsel’, Man torn in twa
And glorious in the lift and grisly on the sod!...
There’s nocht sae sober as a man blin’ drunk.
I maun ha’e got an unco bellyfu’
To jaw like this—and yet what I am sayin’
Is a’ the apter, aiblins, to be true.
This munelicht’s fell like whisky noo I see’t.
—Am I a thingum mebbe that is kept
Preserved in spirits in a muckle bottle
Lang centuries efter sin’ wi’ Jean I slept?
—Mounted on a hillside, wi’ the thistles
And bracken for verisimilitude,
Like a stuffed bird on metal like a brainch,
Or a seal on a stump o’ rock-like wood?
Or am I juist a figure in a scene
O’ Scottish life A.D. one-nine-two-five?
The haill thing kelters like a theatre claith
Till I micht fancy that I was alive!
I dinna ken and nae man ever can.
I micht be in my ain bed efter a’.
The haill damned thing’s a dream for ocht we ken,
—The Warld and Life and Daith, Heaven, Hell ana’.
We maun juist tak’ things as we find them then,
And mak’ a kirk or mill o’ them as we can,
—And yet I feel this muckle thistle’s staun’in’
Atween me and the mune as pairt o’ a Plan.
It isna there—nor me—by accident.
We’re brocht thegither for a certain reason,
Ev’n gin it’s naething mair than juist to gi’e
My jaded soul a necessary _frisson_.
I never saw afore a thistle quite
Sae intimately, or at sic an ’oor.
There’s something in the fickle licht that gi’es
A different life to’t and an unco poo’er.
[3]“_Rootit on gressless peaks, whaur its erect
And jaggy leafs, austerely cauld and dumb,
Haud the slow scaly serpent in respect,
The Gothic thistle, whaur the insect’s hum
Soon’s fer aff, lifts abune the rock it scorns
Its rigid virtue for the Heavens to see.
The too’ering boulders gaird it. And the bee
Mak’s honey frae the roses on its thorns._”
But that’s a Belgian refugee, of coorse.
_This_ Freudian complex has somehoo slunken
Frae Scotland’s soul—the Scots aboulia—
Whilst a’ its _terra nullius_ is _betrunken_.
And a’ the country roon’ aboot it noo
Lies clapt and shrunken syne like somebody wha
Has lang o’ seven devils been possessed;
Then when he turns a corner tines them a’,
Or like a body that has tint its soul.
Perched like a monkey on its heedless kist,
Or like a sea that peacefu’ fa’s again
When frae its deeps an octopus is fished.
I canna feel it has to dae wi’ me
Mair than a composite diagram o’
Cross-sections o’ my forbears’ organs
—And mine—’ud bring a kind o’ freen’ly glow.
And yet like bindweed through my clay it’s run,
And a’ my folks’—it’s queer to see’t unroll.
My ain soul looks me in the face, as ’twere,
And mair than my ain soul—my nation’s soul!
And sall a Belgian pit it into words
And sing a sang to’t syne, and no’ a Scot?
Oors is a wilder thistle, and Ramaekers
Canna bear aff the gree—avaunt the thocht!
To meddle wi’ the thistle and to pluck
The figs frae’t is _my_ metier, I think.
Awak’, my muse, and gin you’re in puir fettle,
We aye can blame it on th’ inferior drink.
T. S. Eliot—it’s a Scottish name—
Afore he wrote ‘The Waste Land’ s’ud ha’e come
To Scotland here. He wad ha’e written
A better poem syne—like this, by gum!
Type o’ the wissenschaftsfeindlichkeit,
Begriffsmüdigkeit that has gar’t
Men try Morphologies der Weltgeschichte,
And mad Expressionismus syne in Art.
[4]_A shameless thing, for ilka vileness able,
It is deid grey as dust, the dust o’ a man.
I perish o’ a nearness I canna win awa’ frae,
Its deidly coils aboot my buik are thrawn._
_A shaggy poulp, embracin’ me and stingin’,
And as a serpent cauld agen’ my hert.
Its scales are poisoned shafts that jag me to the quick
—And waur than them’s my scunner’s fearfu’ smert!_
_O that its prickles were a knife indeed,
But it is thowless, flabby, dowf, and numb.
Sae sluggishly it drains my benmaist life
A dozent dragon, dreidfu’, deef, and dumb._
_In mum obscurity it twines its obstinate rings
And hings caressin’ly, its purpose whole;
And this deid thing, whale-white obscenity,
This horror that I writhe in—is my soul!_
Is it the munelicht or a leprosy
That spreids aboot me; and a thistle
Or my ain skeleton through wha’s bare banes
A fiendish wund’s begood to whistle?
The devil’s lauchter has a _hwll_ like this.
My face has flown open like a lid
—And gibberin’ on the hillside there
Is a’ humanity sae lang has hid!...
My harns are seaweed—when the tide is in
They swall like blethers and in comfort float,
But when the tide is oot they lie like gealed
And runkled auld bluid-vessels in a knot!
The munelicht ebbs and flows and wi’t my thocht,
Noo’ movin’ mellow and noo lourd and rough.
I ken what I am like in Life and Daith,
But Life and Daith for nae man are enough....
And O! to think that there are members o’
St Andrew’s Societies sleepin’ soon’,
Wha to the papers wrote afore they bedded
On regimental buttons or buckled shoon,
Or use o’ England whaur the U.K.’s meent,
Or this or that anent the Blue Saltire,
Recruitin’, pedigrees, and Gude kens what,
Filled wi’ a proper patriotic fire!
Wad I were them—they’ve chosen a better pairt,
The couthie craturs, than the ane I’ve ta’en,
Tyauvin’ wi’ this root-hewn Scottis soul;
A fer, fer better pairt—except for men.
Nae doot they’re sober, as a Scot ne’er was,
Each tethered to a punctual-snorin’ missus,
Whilst I, puir fule, owre continents unkent
And wine-dark oceans waunder like Ulysses....
[5]_The Mune sits on my bed the nicht unsocht,
And mak’s my soul obedient to her will;
And in the dumb-deid, still as dreams are still,
Her pupils narrow to bricht threids that thrill
Aboot the sensuous windin’s o’ her thocht._
_But ilka windin’ has its coonter-pairt
—The opposite ’thoot which it couldna be—
In some wild kink or queer perversity
O’ this great thistle, green wi’ jealousy,
That breenges ’twixt the munelicht and my hert._...
Plant, what are you then? Your leafs
Mind me o’ the pipes’ lood drone
—And a’ your purple tops
Are the pirly-wirly notes
That gang staggerin’ owre them as they groan.
Or your leafs are alligators
That ha’e gobbled owre a haill
Company o’ Heilant sodgers,
And left naethin’ but the toories
O’ their Balmoral bonnets to tell the tale.
Or a muckle bellows blawin’
Wi’ the sperks a’ whizzin’ oot;
Or green tides sweeshin’
’Neth heich-skeich stars,
Or centuries fleein’ doun a water-chute.
Grinnin’ gargoyle by a saint,
Mephistopheles in Heaven,
Skeleton at a tea-meetin’,
Missin’ link—or creakin’
Hinge atween the deid and livin’....
(I kent a Terrier in a sham fecht aince,
Wha louped a dyke and landed on a thistle.
He’d naething on ava aneth his kilt.
Schönberg has nae notation for his whistle.)...
(Gin you’re surprised a village drunk
Foreign references s’ud fool in,
You ha’ena the respect you s’ud
For oor guid Scottish schoolin’.
For we’ve the maist unlikely folk
Aye braggin’ o’ oor lear,
And, tho’ I’m drunk, for Scotland’s sake
I tak’ my barrowsteel here!
Yet Europe’s faur eneuch for me,
Puir fule, when bairns ken mair
O’ th’ ither warld than I o’ this
—But that’s no’ here nor there!)...
Guid sakes, I’m in a dreidfu’ state.
I’ll ha’e nae inklin’ sune
Gin I’m the drinker or the drink,
The thistle or the mune.
I’m geylies feart I couldna tell
Gin I su’d lay me doon
The difference betwixt the warld
And my ain heid gaen’ roon’!...
Drums in the Walligate, pipes in the air,
Come and hear the cryin’ o’ the Fair.
A’ as it used to be, when I was a loon
On Common-Ridin’ Day in the Muckle Toon.
The bearer twirls the Bannock-and-Saut-Herrin’,
The Croon o’ Roses through the lift is farin’,
The aucht-fit thistle wallops on hie;
In heather besoms a’ the hills gang by.
But noo it’s a’ the fish o’ the sea
Nailed on the roond o’ the Earth to me.
Beauty and Love that are bobbin’ there;
Syne the breengin’ growth that alane I bear;
And Scotland followin’ on ahint
For threepenny bits spleet-new frae the mint.
Drums in the Walligate, pipes in the air,
The wallopin’ thistle is ill to bear.
But I’ll dance the nicht wi’ the stars o’ Heaven
In the Mairket Place as shair’s I’m livin’.
Easy to cairry roses or herrin’,
And the lave may weel their threepenny bits earn.
Devil the star! It’s Jean I’ll ha’e
Again as she was on her weddin’ day....
Nerves in stounds o’ delight,
Muscles in pride o’ power,
Bluid as wi’ roses dight
Life’s toppin’ pinnacles owre,
The thistle yet’ll unite
Man and the Infinite!
Swippert and swith wi’ virr
In the howes o’ man’s hert
Forever its muckle roots stir
Like a Leviathan astert,
Till’ts coils like a thistle’s leafs
Sweep space wi’ levin sheafs.
Frae laichest deeps o’ the ocean
It rises in flight upon flight,
And ’yont its uttermaist motion
Can still set roses alight,
As else unreachable height
Fa’s under its triumphin’ sight.
Here is the root that feeds
The shank wi’ the blindin’ wings
Dwinin’ abuneheid to gleids
Like stars in their keethin’ rings,
And blooms in sunrise and sunset
Inowre Eternity’s yett.
Lay haud o’ my hert and feel
Fountains ootloupin’ the starns
Or see the Universe reel
Set gaen’ by my eident harns,
Or test the strength o’ my spauld
The wecht o’ a’ thing to hauld!
—The howes o’ Man’s hert are bare,
The Dragon’s left them for good,
There’s nocht but naethingness there,
The hole whaur the Thistle stood,
That rootless and radiant flies
A Phœnix in Paradise!...
Masoch and Sade
Turned into ane
Havoc ha’e made
O’ my a’e brain.
Weel, gin it’s Sade
Let it be said
They’ve made me mad
—That’ll da’e instead.
But it’s no’ instead
In Scots, but insteed.
—The life they’ve led
In my puir heid.
But aince I’ve seen
In the thistle here
A’ that they’ve been
I’ll aiblins wun clear.
_Thistleless fule,
You’ll ha’e nocht left
But the hole frae which
Life’s struggle is reft!_...
Reason ser’s nae end but pleasure,
Truth’s no’ an end but a means
To a wider knowledge o’ life
And a keener interest in’t.
We wha are poets and artists
Move frae inklin’ to inklin’,
And live for oor antrin lichtnin’s
In the haingles atweenwhiles,
Laich as the feck o’ mankind
Whence we breenge in unkennable shapes
—_Crockats up, hair kaimed to the lift,
And no’ to cree legs wi’!_...
We’re ootward boond frae Scotland.
Guid-bye, fare-ye-weel; guid-bye, fare-ye-weel.
—A’ the Scots that ever wur
Gang ootward in a creel.
We’re ootward boond frae Scotland.
Guid-bye, fare-ye-weel; guid-bye, fare-ye-weel.
The cross-tap is a monkey-tree
That nane o’ us can spiel.
We’ve never seen the Captain,
But the first mate is a Jew.
We’ve shipped aboord Eternity.
Adieu, kind freends, adieu!...
In the creel or on the gell
O’ oor coutribat and ganien.
What gin ithers see or hear
Naething but a gowkstorm?
Gin you stop the galliard
To teach them hoo to dance,
There comes in Corbaudie
And turns their gammons up!...
You vegetable cat’s melody!
Your _Concert Miaulant_ is
A triumph o’ discord shairly,
And suits my fancy fairly
—I’m shair that Scott’ll agree
He canna vie wi’ this....
Said my body to my mind,
“I’ve been startled whiles to find,
When Jean has been in bed wi’ me,
A kind o’ Christianity!”
To my body said my mind,
“But your benmaist thocht you’ll find
Was ‘Bother what I think I feel
—Jean kens the set o’ my bluid owre weel,
And lauchs to see me in the creel
O’ my courage-bag confined.’”...
I wish I kent the physical basis
O’ a’ life’s seemin’ airs and graces.
It’s queer the thochts a kittled cull
Can lowse or splairgin’ glit annul.
Man’s spreit is wi’ his ingangs twined
In ways that he can ne’er unwind.
A wumman whiles a bawaw gi’es
That clean abaws him gin he sees.
Or wi’ a movement o’ a leg
Shows’m his mind is juist a geg.
I’se warrant Jean ’ud no’ be lang
In findin’ whence this thistle sprang.
Mebbe it’s juist because I’m no’
Beddit wi’ her that gars it grow!...
A luvin’ wumman is a licht[6]
That shows a man his waefu’ plicht,
Bleezin’ steady on ilka bane,
Wrigglin’ sinnen an’ twinin’ vein,
Or fleerin’ quick an’ gane again,
And the mair scunnersome the sicht
The mair for love and licht he’s fain
Till clear and chitterin’ and nesh
Move a’ the miseries o’ his flesh....
O lass, wha see’est me
As I daur hardly see,
I marvel that your bonny een
Are as they hadna’ seen.
Through a’ my self-respect
They see the truth abject
—_Gin you could pierce their blindin’ licht
You’d see a fouler sicht!_...
O wha’s the bride that cairries the bunch
O’ thistles blinterin’ white?
Her cuckold bridegroom little dreids
What he sail ken this nicht.
For closer than gudeman can come
And closer to’r than hersel’,
Wha didna need her maidenheid
Has wrocht his purpose fell.
O wha’s been here afore me, lass,
And hoo did he get in?
—_A man that deed or I was born
This evil thing has din._
And left, as it were on a corpse,
Your maidenheid to me?
—_Nae lass, gudeman, sin’ Time began
’S hed ony mair to gi’e._
_But I can gi’e ye kindness, lad,
And a pair o’ willin’ hands,
And you sall ha’e my briests like stars,
My limbs like willow wands,_
_And on my lips ye’ll heed nae mair,
And in my hair forget,
The seed o’ a’ the men that in
My virgin womb ha’e met_....
Millions o’ wimmen bring forth in pain
Millions o’ bairns that are no’ worth ha’en.
Wull ever a wumman be big again
Wi’s muckle’s a Christ? Yech, there’s nae sayin’.
Gin that’s the best that you ha’e comin’,
Fegs but I’m sorry for you, wumman!
Yet a’e thing’s certain.—Your faith is great.
Whatever happens, you’ll no’ be blate!...
Mary lay in jizzen
As it were claith o’ gowd,
But it’s in orra duds
Ilka ither bairntime’s row’d.
Christ had never toothick,
Christ was never seeck,
But Man’s a fiky bairn
Wi’ bellythraw, ripples, and worm-i’-the-cheek!...
Dae what ye wull ye canna parry
This skeleton-at-the-feast that through the starry
Maze o’ the warld’s intoxicatin’ soiree
Claughts ye, as micht at an affrontit quean
A bastard wean!
Prood mune, ye needna thring your shouder there,
And at your puir get like a snawstorm stare,
It’s yours—there’s nae denyin’t—and I’m shair
You’d no’ enjoy the evenin’ much the less
Gin you’d but openly confess!
Dod! It’s an eaten and a spewed-like thing,
Fell like a little-bodies’ changeling,
And it’s nae credit t’ye that you s’ud bring
The like to life—yet, gi’en a mither’s love,
—Hee, hee!—wha kens hoo’t micht improve?...
Or is this Heaven, this yalla licht,
And I the aft’rins o’ the Earth,
Or sic’s in this wanchancy time
May weel fin’ sudden birth?
The roots that wi’ the worms compete
Hauf-publish me upon the air.
The struggle that divides me still
Is seen fu’ plainly there.
The thistle’s shank scarce holes the grun’,
My grave’ll spare nae mair I doot.
—_The crack’s fu’ wide; the shank’s fu’ strang;
A’ that I was is oot._
My knots o’ nerves that struggled sair
Are weel reflected in the herb;
My crookit instincts were like this,
As sterile and acerb.
My self-tormented spirit took
The shape repeated in the thistle;
Sma’ beauty jouked my rawny banes
And maze o’ gristle.
I seek nae peety, Paraclete,
And, fegs, I think the joke is rich
—_Pairt soul, pairt skeleton’s come up;
They kentna which was which!_...
Thou Daith in which my life
Sae vain a thing can seem,
Frae whatna source d’ye borrow
Your devastatin’ gleam?
Nae doot that hidden sun
’Ud look fu’ wae ana’,
Gin I could see it in the licht
That frae the Earth you draw!...
Shudderin’ thistle, gi’e owre, gi’e owre!
A’body’s gi’en in to the facts o’ life;
The impossible truth’ll triumph at last,
And mock your strife.
Your sallow leafs can never thraw,
Wi’ a’ their oorie shakin’,
Ae doot into the hert o’ life
That it may be mistak’n....
_O Scotland is
=The= barren fig.
Up, carles, up
And roond it jig._
_Auld Moses took
A dry stick and
Instantly it
Floo’ered in his hand._
_Pu’ Scotland up,
And wha can say
It winna bud
And blossom tae._
_A miracle’s
Oor only chance.
Up, carles, up
And let us dance!_
Puir Burns, wha’s bouquet like a shot kail blaws
—Will this rouch sicht no’ gi’e the orchids pause?
The Gairdens o’ the Muses may be braw,
But nane like oors can breenge and eat ana’!
And owre the kailyaird-wa’ Dunbar they’ve flung,
And a’ their countrymen that e’er ha’e sung
For ither than ploomen’s lugs or to enrichen
Plots on Parnassus set apairt for kitchen.
Ploomen and ploomen’s wives—shades o’ the Manse
May weel be at the heid o’ sic a dance,
As through the polish’t ha’s o’ Europe leads
The rout o’ bagpipes, haggis, and sheep’s heids!
The vandal Scot! Frae Branksome’s deidly barrow
I struggle yet to free a’e winsome marrow,
To show what Scotland micht ha’e hed instead
O’ this preposterous Presbyterian breed.
(Gin Glesca folk are tired o’ Hengler,
And still need breid and circuses, there’s Spengler,
Or gin ye s’ud need mair than ane to teach ye,
Then learn frae Dostoevski and frae Nietzsche.
And let the lesson be—to be yersel’s,
Ye needna fash gin it’s to be ocht else.
To be yersel’s—and to mak’ that worth bein’.
Nae harder job to mortals has been gi’en.
To save your souls fu’ mony o’ ye are fain,
But de’il a dizzen to mak’ it worth the daein’.
I widna gi’e five meenits wi’ Dunbar
For a’ the millions o’ ye as ye are).
I micht ha’e been contentit wi’ the Rose
Gin I’d had ony reason to suppose
That what the English dae can e’er mak’ guid
For what Scots dinna—and first and foremaist should.
I micht ha’e been contentit—gin the feck
O’ my ain folk had grovelled wi’ less respec’,
But their obsequious devotion
Made it for me a criminal emotion.
I micht ha’e been contentit—ere I saw
That there were fields on which it couldna draw,
(While strang-er roots ran under’t) and a’e threid
O’t drew frae Scotland a’ that it could need,
And left the maist o’ Scotland fallow
(Save for the patch on which the kail-blades wallow),
And saw hoo ither countries’ genius drew
Elements like mine that in a rose ne’er grew....
Gin the threid haud’n us to the rose were snapt,
There’s no’ a’e petal o’t that ’ud be clapt.
A’ Scotland gi’es gangs but to jags or stalk,
The bloom is English—and ’ud ken nae lack!...
O drumlie clood o’ crudity and cant,
Obliteratin’ as the Easter rouk
That rows up frae the howes and droons the heichs,
And turns the country to a faceless spook.
Like blurry shapes o’ landmarks in the haar
The bonny idiosyncratic place-names loom,
Clues to the vieve and maikless life that’s lain
Happit for centuries in an alien gloom....
_Eneuch! For noo I’m in the mood,
Scotland, responsive to my thoughts,
Lichts mile by mile, as my ain nerves,
Frae Maidenheid to John o’ Groats!_
What are prophets and priests and kings,
What’s ocht to the people o’ Scotland?
Speak—and Cruivie’ll goam at you,
Gilsanquhar jalouse you’re dottlin!
And Edinburgh and Glasgow
Are like ploomen in a pub.
They want to hear o’ naething
But their ain foul hubbub....
The fules are richt; an extra thocht
Is neither here nor there.
Oor lives may differ as they like
—The self-same fate we share.
And whiles I wish I’d nae mair sense
Than Cruivie and Gilsanquhar,
And envy their rude health and curse
My gnawin’ canker.
Guid sakes, ye dinna need to pass
Ony exam. to dee
—Daith canna tell a common flech
Frae a performin’ flea!...
It sets you weel to slaver
To let sic gaadies fa’
—_The mune’s the muckle white whale
I seek in vain to kaa!_
_The Earth’s my mastless samyn,
The thistle my ruined sail._
—Le’e go as you maun in the end,
And droon in your plumm o’ ale!...
Clear keltie aff an’ fill again
Withoot corneigh bein’ cryit,
The drink’s aye best that follows a drink.
Clear keltie aff and try it.
Be’t whisky gill or penny wheep,
Or ony ither lotion,
We ’bood to ha’e a thimblefu’ first,
And syne we’ll toom an ocean!...
“To Luna at the Craidle-and-Coffin
To sof’n her hert if owt can sof’n:—
Auld bag o’ tricks, ye needna come
And think to stap me in your womb.
You needna fash to rax and strain.
Carline, I’ll _no_ be born again
In ony brat you can produce.
Carline, gi’e owre—O what’s the use?
You pay nae heed but plop me in,
Syne shove me oot, and winna be din,
—Owre and owre, the same auld trick,
Cratur withoot climateric!...
“Noo Cutty Sark’s tint that ana,
And dances in her skin—Ha! Ha!
I canna ride awa’ like Tam,
But e’en maun bide juist whaur I am.
I canna ride—and gin I could,
I’d sune be sorry I hedna stood,
For less than a’ there is to see
’ll never be owre muckle for me.
Cutty, gin you’ve mair to strip,
Aff wi’t, lass—and let it rip!”...
Ilka pleesure I can ha’e
Ends like a dram ta’en yesterday.
And tho’ to ha’e it I am lorn
—What better ’ud I be the morn?...
My belly on the gantrees there,
The spigot frae my cullage,
And wow but how the fizzin’ yill
In spilth increased the ullage!
I was an anxious barrel, lad,
When first they tapped my bung.
They whistled me up, yet thro’ the lift
My freaths like rainbows swung.
Waesucks, a pride for ony bar,
The boast o’ barleyhood,
Like Noah’s Ark abune the faem
Maun float, a gantin’ cude,
For I was thrawn fu’ cock owre sune,
And wi’ a single jaw
I made the pub a blindin’ swelth,
And how’d the warld awa’!...
What forest worn to the back-hauf’s this,
What Eden brocht doon to a bean-swaup?
The thistle’s to earth as the man
In the mune’s to the mune, puir chap.
The haill warld’s barkin’ and fleein’,
And this is its echo and aiker,
A soond that arrears in my lug
Herrin’-banein’ back to its maker,
A swaw like a flaw in a jewel
Or _nadryv_[7] jaloused in a man,
Or Creation unbiggit again
To the draucht wi’ which it began....
Abordage o’ this toom houk’s nae mowse.
It munks and’s ill to lay haud o’,
As gin a man ettled to ride
On the shouders o’ his ain shadow.
I canna biel’t; tho’ steekin’ an e’e
Tither’s munkie wi’ munebeam for knool in’t,
For there’s nae sta’-tree and the brute’s awa’
Wi’ me kinkin’ like foudrie ahint....
Sae Eternity’ll buff nor stye
For Time, and shies at a touch, man;
Yet aye in a belth o’ Thocht
Comes alist like the Fleein’ Dutchman....
As the worms’ll breed in my corpse until
It’s like a rice-puddin’, the thistle
Has made an eel-ark o’ the lift
Whaur elvers like skirl-in-the-pan sizzle,
Like a thunder-plump on the sunlicht,
Or the slounge o’ daith on my dreams,
Or as to a fair forfochen man
A breedin’ wife’s beddiness seems,
Saragossa Sea, St Vitus’ Dance,
A _cafard_ in a brain’s despite,
Or lunacy that thinks a’ else
Is loony—and is dootless richt!...
Gin my thochts that circle like hobby-horses
’Udna loosen to nightmares I’d sleep;
For nocht but a chowed core’s left whaur Jerusalem lay
Like aipples in a heap!...
It’s a queer thing to tryst wi’ a wumman
When the boss o’ her body’s gane,
And her banes in the wund as she comes
Dirl like a raff o’ rain.
It’s a queer thing to tryst wi’ a wumman
When her ghaist frae abuneheid keeks,
And you see in the licht o’t that a’
You ha’e o’r’s the cleiks....
What forest worn to the backhauf’s this,
What Eden brocht doon to a beanswaup?
—A’ the ferlies o’ natur’ spring frae the earth,
And into’t again maun drap.
Animals, vegetables, what are they a’
But as thochts that a man has ha’en?
And Earth sall be like a toom skull syne.
—Whaur’ll its thochts be then?...
The munelicht is my knowledge o’ mysel’,
Mysel’ the thistle in the munelicht seen,
And hauf my shape has fund itsel’ in thee
And hauf my knowledge in your piercin’ een.
E’en as the munelicht’s borrowed frae the sun
I ha’e my knowledge o’ mysel’ frae thee,
And much that nane but thee can e’er mak’ clear,
Save my licht’s frae the source, is dark to me.
Your acid tongue, vieve lauchter, and hawk’s een,
And bluid that drobs like haill to quicken me,
Can turn the mid-day black or midnicht bricht,
Lowse me frae licht or eke frae darkness free.
Bite into me forever mair and lift
Me clear o’ chaos in a great relief
Till, like this thistle in the munelicht growin’,
I brak in roses owre a hedge o’ grief....
I am like Burns, and ony wench
Can ser’ me for a time.
Licht’s in them a’—in some a sun,
In some the merest skime.
I’m no’ like Burns, and weel I ken,
Tho’ ony wench can ser’,
It’s no’ through mony but through yin
That ony man wuns fer....
I weddit thee frae fause love, lass,
To free thee and to free mysel’;
But man and wumman tied for life
True can be and truth can tell.
Pit ony couple in a knot
They canna lowse and needna try,
And mair o’ love at last they’ll ken
—If ocht!—than joy’ll alane descry.
For them as for the beasts, my wife,
A’s fer frae dune when pleesure’s owre,
And coontless difficulties gar
Ilk hert discover a’ its power.
I dinna say that bairns alane
Are true love’s task—a sairer task
Is aiblins to create oorsels
As we can be—it’s that I ask.
Create oorsels, syne bairns, syne race.
Sae on the cod I see’t in you
Wi’ Maidenkirk to John o’ Groats
The bosom that you draw me to.
And nae Scot wi’ a wumman lies,
But I am he and ken as ’twere
A stage I’ve passed as he maun pass’t,
Gin he grows up, his way wi’ her!...
A’thing wi’ which a man
Can intromit’s a wumman,
And can, and s’ud, become
As intimate and human.
And Jean’s nae mair my wife
Than whisky is at times,
Or munelicht or a thistle
Or kittle thochts or rhymes.
He’s no’ a man ava’,
And lacks a proper pride,
Gin less than a’ the warld
Can ser’ him for a bride!...
Use, then, my lust for whisky and for thee,
Your function but to be and let me be
And see and let me see.
If in a lesser licht I grope my way,
Or use’t for ends that need your different ray
Whelm’t in superior day.
Then aye increase and ne’er withdraw your licht.
—Gin it shows either o’s in hideous plicht,
What gain to turn’t to nicht?
Whisky mak’s Heaven or Hell and whiles mells baith,
Disease is but the privy torch o’ Daith,
—But sex reveals life, faith!
I need them a’ and maun be aye at strife.
Daith and ayont are nocht but pairts o’ life.
—Then be life’s licht, my wife!...
Love often wuns free
In lust to be strangled,
Or love, o’ lust free,
In law’s sairly tangled.
And it’s ill to tell whether
Law or lust is to blame
When love’s chokit up
—It comes a’ to the same.
In this sorry growth
Whatna beauty is tint
That freed o’t micht find
A waur fate than is in’t?...
_Yank oot your orra boughs, my hert!_
God gied man speech and speech created thocht,
He gied man speech but to the Scots gied nocht
Barrin’ this clytach that they’ve never brocht
To onything but sic a Blottie O
As some bairn’s copybook micht show,
A spook o’ soond that frae the unkent grave
In which oor nation lies loups up to wave
Sic leprous chuns as tatties have
That cellar-boond send spindles gropin’
Towards ony hole that’s open,
Like waesome fingers in the dark that think
They still may widen the ane and only chink
That e’er has gi’en mankind a blink
O’ Hope—tho’ ev’n in that puir licht
They s’ud ha’e seen their hopeless plicht.
This puir relation o’ my topplin’ mood,
This country cousin, streak o’ churl-bluid,
This hopeless airgh ’twixt a’ we can and should,
This Past that like Astarte’s sting I feel,
This arrow in Achilles’ heel.
_Yank oot your orra boughs, my hert!_
Mebbe we’re in a vicious circle cast,
Mebbe there’s limits we can ne’er get past,
Mebbe we’re sentrices that at the last
Are flung aside, and no’ the pillars and props
O’ Heaven foraye as in oor hopes.
Oor growth at least nae steady progress shows,
Genius in mankind like an antrin rose
Abune a jungly waste o’ effort grows,
But to Man’s purpose it mak’s little odds,
And seems irrelevant to God’s....
Eneuch? Then here you are. Here’s the haill story.
Life’s connached shapes too’er up in croons o’ glory,
Perpetuatin’, natheless, in their gory
Colour the endless sacrifice and pain
That to their makin’s gane.
The roses like the saints in Heaven treid
Triumphant owre the agonies o’ their breed,
And wag fu’ mony a celestial heid
Abune the thorter-ills o’ leaf and prick
In which they ken the feck maun stick.
_Yank oot your orra boughs, my hert!_
A mongrel growth, jumble o’ disproportions,
Whirlin’ in its incredible contortions,
Or wad-be client that an auld whore shuns,
Wardin’ her wizened orange o’ a bosom
Frae importunities sae gruesome,
Or new diversion o’ the hormones
Mair fond o’ procreation than the Mormons,
And fetchin’ like a devastatin’ storm on’s
A’ the uncouth dilemmas o’ oor natur’
Objectified in vegetable maitter.
_Yank oot your orra boughs, my hert!_
And heed nae mair the foolish cries that beg
You slice nae mair to aff or pu’ to leg,
You skitin’ duffer that gar’s a’body fleg,
—What tho’ you ding the haill warld oot o’ joint
Wi’ a skier to cover-point!
_Yank oot your orra boughs, my hert!_
There _was_ a danger—and it’s weel I see’t—
Had brocht ye like Mallarmé to defeat:—
“Mon doute, amas de nuit ancienne s’achève
En maint rameau subtil, qui, demeuré les vrais
Bois même, prouve, hélas! que bien seul je m’offrais
Pour triomphe le faute idéale des roses.”[8]
_Yank oot your orra boughs, my hert!_...
I love to muse upon the skill that gangs
To mak’ the simplest thing that Earth displays,
The eident life that ilka atom thrangs,
And uses it in the appointit ways,
And a’ the endless brain that nocht escapes
That myriad moves them to inimitable shapes.
Nor to their customed form nor ony ither
New to Creation, by man’s cleverest mind,
A’ needfu’ particles first brocht thegither,
Could they wi’ timeless labour be combined.
There’s nocht that Science yet’s begood to see
In hauf its deemless detail or its destiny.
Oor een gi’e answers based on pairt-seen facts
That beg a’ questions, to ebb minds’ content,
But hoo a’e feature or the neist attracts,
Wi’ millions mair unseen, wha kens what’s meant
By human brains and to what ends may tell
—For naething’s seen or kent that’s near a thing itsel’!
Let whasae vaunts his knowledge then and syne
Sets up a God and kens _His_ purpose tae
Tell me what’s gart a’e strain o’ maitter twine
In sic an extraordinary way,
And what God’s purpose wi’ the Thistle is
—I’ll aiblins ken what he and his God’s worth by this.
I’ve watched it lang and hard until I ha’e
A certain symp’thy wi’ its orra ways
And pride in its success, as weel I may,
In growin’ exactly as its instinct says,
Save in sae fer as thwarts o’ weather or grun’
Or man or ither foes ha’e’ts aims perchance fordone.
But I can form nae notion o’ the spirit
That gars it tak’ the difficult shape it does,
Nor judge the merit yet or the demerit
O’ this detail or that sae fer as it goes
T’ advance the cause that gied it sic a guise
As maun ha’e pleased its Maker wi’ a gey surprise.
The craft that hit upon the reishlin’ stalk,
Wi’ts gausty leafs and a’ its datchie jags,
And spired it syne in seely flooers to brak
Like sudden lauchter owre its fousome rags
Jouks me, sardonic lover, in the routh
O’ contrairies that jostle in this dumfoondrin’ growth.
What strength ’t’ud need to pit its roses oot,
Or double them in number or in size,
He canna tell wha canna plumb the root,
And learn what’s gar’t its present state arise,
And what the limits are that ha’e been put
To change in thistles, and why—and what a change ’ud boot....
I saw a rose come loupin’ oot[9]
Frae a camsteerie plant.
O wha’d ha’e thocht yon puir stock had
Sic an inhabitant?
For centuries it ran to waste,
Wi’ pin-heid flooers at times.
O’ts hidden hert o’ beauty they
Were but the merest skimes.
Yet while it ran to wud and thorns,
The feckless growth was seekin’
Some airt to cheenge its life until
A’ in a rose was beekin’.
“Is there nae way in which my life
Can mair to flooerin’ come,
And bring its waste on shank and jags
Doon to a minimum?
“It’s hard to struggle as I maun
For scrunts o’ blooms like mine,
While blossom covers ither plants
As by a knack divine.
“What hinders me unless I lack
Some needfu’ discipline?
—I wis I’ll bring my orra life
To beauty or I’m din!”
Sae ran the thocht that hid ahint
The thistle’s ugsome guise,
“I’ll brak’ the habit o’ my life
A worthier to devise.”
“My nobler instincts sall nae mair
This contrair shape be gi’en.
I sall nae mair consent to live
A life no’ fit to be seen.”
Sae ran the thocht that hid ahint
The thistle’s ugsome guise,
Till a’ at aince a rose loupt out
—I watched it wi’ surprise.
A rose loupt oot and grew, until
It was ten times the size
O’ ony rose the thistle afore
Had heistit to the skies.
And still it grew till a’ the buss
Was hidden in its flame.
I never saw sae braw a floo’er
As yon thrawn stock became.
And still it grew until it seemed
The haill braid earth had turned
A reid reid rose that in the lift
Like a ball o’ fire burned.
The waefu’ clay was fire aince mair,
As Earth had been resumed
Into God’s mind, frae which sae lang
To grugous state ’twas doomed.
Syne the rose shrivelled suddenly
As a balloon is burst;
The thistle was a ghaistly stick,
As gin it had been curst.
Was it the ancient vicious sway
Imposed itsel’ again,
Or nerve owre weak for new emprise
That made the effort vain,
A coward strain in that lorn growth
That wrocht the sorry trick?
—The thistle like a rocket soared
And cam’ doon like the stick.
Like grieshuckle the roses glint,
The leafs like farles hing,
As roond a hopeless sacrifice
Earth draws its barren ring.
The dream o’ beauty’s dernin’ yet
Ahint the ugsome shape.
—Vain dream that in a pinheid here
And there can e’er escape!
The vices that defeat the dream
Are in the plant itsel’,
And till they’re purged its virtues maun
In pain and misery dwell.
Let Deils rejoice to see the waste,
The fond hope brocht to nocht.
The thistle in their een is as
A favourite lust they’re wrocht.
The orderin’ o’ the thistle means
Nae richtin’ o’t to them.
Its loss they ca’ a law, its thorns
A fule’s fit diadem.
And still the idiot nails itsel’
To its ain crucifix,
While here a rose and there a rose
Jaups oot abune the pricks.
Like connoisseurs the Deils gang roond
And praise its attitude,
Till on the Cross the silly Christ
To fidge fu’ fain’s begood!
Like connoisseurs the Deils gang roond
Wi’ ready platitude.
It’s no’ sae dear as vinegar,
And every bit as good!
The bitter taste is on my tongue,
I chowl my chafts, and pray
“Let God forsake me noo and no’
Staund connoisseur-like tae!”...
The language that but sparely flooers
And maistly gangs to weed;
The thocht o’ Christ and Calvary
Aye liddenin’ in my heid;
And a’ the dour provincial thocht
That merks the Scottish breed
—These are the thistle’s characters,
To argie there’s nae need.
Hoo weel my verse embodies
The thistle you can read!
—But will a Scotsman never
Frae this vile growth be freed?...
O ilka man alive is like
A quart that’s squeezed into a pint
(A maist unScottish-like affair!)
Or like the little maid that showed
Me into a still sma’er room.
What use to let a sunrise fade
To ha’e anither like’t the morn,
Or let a generation pass
That ane nae better may succeed,
Or wi’ a’ Time’s machinery
Keep naething new aneth the sun,
Or change things oot o’ kennin’ that
They may be a’ the mair the same?
The thistle in the wund dissolves
In lichtnin’s as shook foil gi’es way
In sudden splendours, or the flesh
At Daith lets slip the infinite soul;
And syne it’s like a sunrise tint
In grey o’ day, or love and life,
That in a cloody blash o’ sperm
Undae the warld to big’t again,
Or like a pickled foetus that
Nae man feels ocht in common wi’
—But micht as easily ha’ been!
Or like a corpse a soul set free
Scunners to think it tenanted
—And little recks that but for it
It never micht ha’ been at a’,
Like love frae lust and God frae man!
The wasted seam that dries like stairch
And pooders aff, that micht ha’ been
A warld o’ men and syne o’ Gods;
The grey that haunts the vievest green;
The wrang side o’ the noblest scene
We ne’er can whummle to oor een,
As ’twere the hinderpairts o’ God
His face aye turned the opposite road,
Or’s neth the flooers the drumlie clods
Frae which they come at sicna odds,
As a’ Earth’s magic frae a spirt,
In shame and secrecy, o’ dirt!
Then shak’ nae mair in silly life,
Nor stand impossible as Daith,
Incredible as a’thing is
Inside or oot owre closely scanned.
As mithers aften think the warld
O’ bairns that ha’e nae end or object,
Or lovers think their sweethearts made
Yince-yirn—wha haena waled the lave,
Maikless—when they are naebody,
Or men o’ ilka sort and kind
Are prood o’ thochts they ca’ their ain,
That nameless millions had afore
And nameless millions yet’ll ha’e,
And that were never worth the ha’en,
Or Cruivie’s “latest” story or
Gilsanquhar’s vows to sign the pledge,
Or’s if I thocht maist whisky _was_,
Or failed to coont the cheenge I got,
Sae wad I be gin I rejoiced,
Or didna ken my place, in thee.
O stranglin’ rictus, sterile spasm,
Thou stricture in the groins o’ licht,
Thou ootrie gangrel frae the wilds
O’ chaos fenced frae Eden yet
By the unsplinterable wa’
O’ munebeams like a bleeze o’ swords!
Nae chance lunge cuts the Gordian knot,
Nor sall the belly find relief
In wha’s entangled moniplies
Creation like a stoppage jams,
Or in whose loins the mapamound
Runkles in strawns o’ bubos whaur
The generations gravel.
The soond o’ water winnin’ free,
The sicht o’ licht that braks the rouk,
The thocht o’ every thwart owrecome
Are in my ears and een and brain,
In whom the bluid is spilt in stour,
In whom a’ licht in darkness fails,
In whom the mystery o’ life
Is to a wretched weed bewrayed.
But let my soul increase in me,
God dwarfed to enter my puir thocht
Expand to his true size again,
And protoplasm’s look befit
The nature o’ its destiny,
And seed and sequence be nae mair
Incongruous to ane anither,
And liquor packed impossibly
Mak’ pint-pot an eternal well,
And art be relevant to life,
And poets mair than dominies yet,
And ends nae langer tint in means,
Nor forests hidden by their trees,
Nor men be sacrificed alive
In foonds o’ fates designed for them,
Nor mansions o’ the soul stand toom
Their owners in their cellars trapped,
Nor a’ a people’s genius be
A rumple-fyke in Heaven’s doup,
While Calvinism uses her
To breed a minister or twa!
A black leaf owre a white leaf twirls,
A grey leaf flauchters in atween,
Sae ply my thochts aboot the stem
O’ loppert slime frae which they spring.
The thistle like a snawstorm drives,
Or like a flicht o’ swallows lifts,
Or like a swarm o’ midges hings,
A plague o’ moths, a starry sky,
But’s naething but a thistle yet,
And still the puzzle stands unsolved.
Beauty and ugliness alike,
And life and daith and God and man,
Are aspects o’t but nane can tell
The secret that I’d fain find oot
O’ this bricht hive, this sorry weed,
The tree that fills the universe,
Or like a reistit herrin’ crines.
Gin I was sober I micht think
It was like something drunk men see!
The necromancy in my bluid
Through a’ the gamut cheenges me
O’ dwarf and giant, foul and fair,
But winna let me be mysel’
—My mither’s womb that reins me still
Until I tae can prick the witch
And “Wumman” cry wi’ Christ at last,
“Then what hast thou to do wi’ me?”
The tug-o’-war is in me still,
The dog-hank o’ the flesh and soul,
Faither in Heaven, what gar’d ye tak’
A village slut to mither me,
Your mongrel o’ the fire and clay?
The trollop and the Deity share
My writhen form as tho’ I were
A picture o’ the time they had
When Licht rejoiced to file itsel’
And Earth upshuddered like a star.
A drucken hizzie gane to bed
Wi’ three-in-ane and ane-in-three.
O fain I’d drink until I saw
Scotland a ferlie o’ delicht,
And fain bide drunk nor ha’e’t recede
Into a shrivelled thistle syne,
As when a sperklin’ tide rins oot,
And leaves a wreath o’ rubbish there!
Wull a’ the seas gang dry at last
(As dry as I am gettin’ noo),
Or wull they aye come back again,
Seilfu’ as my neist drink to me,
Or as the sunlicht to the mune,
Or as the bonny sangs o’ men,
Wha’re but puir craturs in themsels,
And save when genius mak’s them drunk,
As donnert as their audiences,
—As dreams that mak’ a tramp a king,
A madman sane to his ain mind,
Or what a Scotsman thinks himsel’,
Tho’ naethin’ but a thistle kyths.
The mair I drink the thirstier yet,
And whiles when I’m alowe wi’ booze,
I’m like God’s sel’ and clad in fire,
And ha’e a Pentecost like this.
O wad that I could aye be fou’,
And no’ come back as aye I maun
To naething but a fule that nane
’Ud credit wi’ sic thochts as thae,
A fule that kens they’re empty dreams!
Yet but fer drink and drink’s effects,
The yeast o’ God that barms in us,
We micht as weel no’ be alive.
It maitters not what drink is ta’en,
The barley bree, ambition, love,
Or Guid or Evil workin’ in’s,
Sae lang’s we feel like souls set free
Frae mortal coils and speak in tongues
We dinna ken and never wull,
And find a merit in oorsels,
In Cruivies and Gilsanquhars tae,
And see the thistle as ocht but that!
For wha o’s ha’e the thistle’s poo’er
To see we’re worthless and believe ’t?
A’thing that ony man can be’s
A mockery o’ his soul at last.
The mair it shows’t the better, and
I’d suner be a tramp than king,
Lest in the pride o’ place and poo’er
I e’er forgot my waesomeness.
Sae to debauchery and dirt,
And to disease and daith I turn,
Sin’ otherwise my seemin’ worth
’Ud block my view o’ what is what,
And blin’ me to the irony
O’ bein’ a grocer ’neth the sun,
A lawyer gin Justice ope’d her een,
A pedant like an ant promoted,
A parson buttonholin’ God,
Or ony cratur o’ the Earth
Sma’-bookt to John Smith, High Street, Perth,
Or sic like vulgar gaffe o’ life
_Sub speciem aeternitatis_—
Nae void can fleg me hauf as much
As bein’ mysel’, whate’er I am,
Or, waur, bein’ onybody else.
The nervous thistle’s shiverin’ like
A horse’s skin aneth a cleg,
Or Northern Lichts or lustres o’
A soul that Daith has fastened on,
Or mornin’ efter the nicht afore.
_Shudderin’ thistle, gi’e owre, gi’e owre_....
_Grey sand is churnin’ in my lugs
The munelicht flets, and gantin’ there
The grave o’ a’ mankind’s laid bare
—On Hell itsel’ the drawback rugs!_
_Nae man can ken his hert until
The tide o’ life uncovers it,
And horror-struck he sees a pit
Returnin’ life can never fill!_...
Thou art the facts in ilka airt
That breenge into infinity,
Criss-crossed wi’ coontless ither facts
Nae man can follow, and o’ which
He is himsel’ a helpless pairt,
Held in their tangle as he were
A stick-nest in Ygdrasil!
The less man sees the mair he is
Content wi’t, but the mair he sees
The mair he kens hoo little o’
A’ that there is he’ll ever see,
And hoo it mak’s confusion aye
The waur confoondit till at last
His brain inside his heid is like
Ariadne wi’ an empty pirn,
Or like a birlin’ reel frae which
A whale has rived the line awa’.
What better’s a forhooied nest
Than skasloch scattered owre the grun’?
O hard it is for man to ken
He’s no’ creation’s goal nor yet
A benefitter by’t at last—
A means to ends he’ll never ken,
And as to michtier elements
The slauchtered brutes he eats to him
Or forms o’ life owre sma’ to see
Wi’ which his heedless body swarms,
And a’ man’s thocht nae mair to them
Than ony moosewob to a man,
His Heaven to them the blinterin’ o’
A snail-trail on their closet wa’!
For what’s an atom o’ a twig
That tak’s a billion to an inch
To a’ the routh o’ shoots that mak’
The bygrowth o’ the Earth aboot
The michty trunk o’ Space that spreids
Ramel o’ licht that ha’e nae end,
—The trunk wi’ centuries for rings,
Comets for fruit, November shooers
For leafs that in its Autumns fa’
—And Man at maist o’ sic a twig
Ane o’ the coontless atoms is!
My sinnens and my veins are but
As muckle o’ a single shoot
Wha’s fibre I can ne’er unwaft
O’ my wife’s flesh and mither’s flesh
And a’ the flesh o’ humankind,
And revelled thrums o’ beasts and plants
As gangs to mak’ twixt birth and daith
A’e sliver for a microscope;
And a’ the life o’ Earth to be
Can never lift frae underneath
The shank o’ which oor destiny’s pairt
As heich’s to stand forenenst the trunk
Stupendous as a windlestrae!
I’m under nae delusions, fegs!
The whuppin’ sooker at wha’s tip
Oor little point o’ view appears,
A midget coom o’ continents
Wi’ blebs o’ oceans set, sends up
The braith o’ daith as weel as life,
And we maun braird anither tip
Oot owre us ere we wither tae,
And join the sentrice skeleton
As coral insects big their reefs.
What is the tree? As fer as Man’s
Concerned it disna maitter
Gin but a giant thistle ’tis
That spreids eternal mischief there,
As I’m inclined to think.
Ruthless it sends its solid growth
Through mair than he can e’er conceive,
And braks his warlds abreid and rives
His Heavens to tatters on its horns.
The nature or the purpose o’t
He needna fash to spier, for he
Is destined to be sune owre grown
And hidden wi’ the parent wud
The spreidin’ boughs in darkness hap,
And a’ its future life’ll be
Ootwith’m as he’s ootwith his banes.
Juist as man’s skeleton has left
Its ancient ape-like shape ahint,
Sae states o’ mind in turn gi’e way
To different states, and quickly seem
Impossible to later men,
And Man’s mind in its final shape,
Or lang’ll seem a monkey’s spook,
And, strewth, to me the vera thocht
O’ Thocht already’s fell like that!
Yet still the cracklin’ thorns persist
In fitba’ match and peepy show,
To antic hay a dog-fecht’s mair
Than Jacob _v._ the Angel,
And through a cylinder o’ wombs,
A star reflected in a dub,
I see as ’twere my ain wild harns
The ripple o’ Eve’s moniplies.
And faith! yestreen in Cruivie’s een
Life rocked at midnicht in a tree,
And in Gilsanquhar’s glower I saw
The taps o’ waves ’neth which the warld
Ga’ed rowin’ like a jeelyfish,
And whiles I canna look at Jean
For fear I’d see the sunlicht turn
Worm-like into the glaur again!
A black leaf owre a white leaf twirls,
My liver’s shadow on my soul,
And clots o’ bluid loup oot frae stems
That back into the jungle rin,
Or in the waters underneath
Kelter like seaweed, while I hear
Abune the thunder o’ the flood,
The voice that aince commanded licht
Sing ‘Scots Wha Ha’e’ and hyne awa’
Like Cruivie up a different glen,
And leave me like a mixture o’
A wee Scotch nicht and Judgment Day,
The bile, the Bible, and the _Scotsman_,
Poetry and pigs—Infernal Thistle,
Damnition haggis I’ve spewed up,
And syne return to like twa dogs!
Blin’ Proteus wi’ leafs or hands
Or flippers ditherin’ in the lift
—Thou Samson in a warld that has
Nae pillars but your cheengin’ shapes
That dung doon, rise in ither airts
Like windblawn reek frae smoo’drin’ ess!
—Hoo lang maun I gi’e aff your forms
O’ plants and beasts and men and Gods
And like a doited Atlas bear
This steeple o’ fish, this eemis warld,
Or, maniac heid wi’ snakes for hair,
A Maenad, ape Aphrodite,
And scunner the Eternal sea?
Man needna fash and even noo
The cells that mak’ a’e sliver wi’m,
The threidy knit he’s woven wi’,
’Ud fain destroy what sicht he has
O’ this puir transitory stage,
Yet tho’ he kens the fragment is
O’ little worth he e’er can view,
Jalousin’ it’s a cheatrie weed,
He tyauves wi’ a’ his micht and main
To keep his sicht despite his kind
Conspirin’ as their nature is
’Gainst ocht wi’ better sicht than theirs.
What gars him strive? He canna tell—
It may be nocht but cussedness.
—At best he hopes for little mair
Than his suspicions to confirm,
To mock the sicht he hains sae weel
At last wi’ a’ he sees wi’ it,
Yet, thistle or no’ whate’er its end,
Aiblins the force that mak’s it grow
And lets him see a kennin’ mair
Than ither folk and fend his sicht
Agen their jealous plots awhile
’ll use the poo’ers it seems to waste,
This purpose ser’d, in ither ways,
That may be better worth the bein’
—Or sae he dreams, syne mocks his dream
Till Life grows sheer awa’ frae him,
And bratts o’ darkness plug his een.
It may be nocht but cussedness,
But I’m content gin a’ my thocht
Can dae nae mair than let me see,
Free frae desire o’ happiness,
The foolish faiths o’ ither men
In breedin’, industry, and War,
Religion, Science, or ocht else
Gang smash—when I ha’e nane mysel’,
Or better gin I share them tae,
Or mind at least a time I did!
Aye, this is Calvary—to bear
Your Cross wi’in you frae the seed,
And feel it grow by slow degrees
Until it rends your flesh apairt,
And turn, and see your fellow-men
In similar case but sufferin’ less
Thro’ bein’ mair wudden frae the stert!...
_I’m fu’ o’ a stickit God._
THAT’S _what’s the maitter wi’ me,
Jean has stuck sic a fork in the wa’
That I row in agonie_.
_Mary never let dab._
SHE _was a canny wumman_.
_She hedna a gaw in Joseph at a’
But, wow, this seecund comin’!_...
_Narodbogonosets_[10] are my folk tae,
But in a sma’ way nooadays—
A faitherly God wi’ a lang white beard,
Or painted Jesus in a haze
O’ blue and gowd, a gird aboot his heid
Or some sic thing. It’s been a sair come-doon,
And the trade’s nocht to what it was.
Unnatural practices are the cause.
Baith bairns and Gods’ll be obsolete soon
(The twaesome gang thegither), and forsooth
Scotland turn Eliot’s waste—the Land o’ Drouth.
But even as the stane the builders rejec’
Becomes the corner-stane, the time may be
When Scotland sall find oot its destiny,
And yield the _vse-chelovek_.[11]
—At a’ events, owre Europe flaught atween,
My whim (and mair than whim) it pleases
To seek the haund o’ Russia as a freen’
In workin’ oot mankind’s great synthesis....
Melville[12] (a Scot) kent weel hoo Christ’s
Corrupted into creeds malign,
Begotten strife’s pernicious brood
That claims for patron Him Divine.
(The Kirk in Scotland still I cry
Crooks whaur it canna crucify!)
Christ, bleedin’ like the thistle’s roses,
He saw—as I in similar case—
Maistly, in beauty and in fear,
’Ud “paralyse the nobler race,
Smite or suspend, perplex, deter,
And, tortured, prove the torturer.”
And never mair a Scot sall tryst,
Abies on Calvary, wi’ Christ,
Unless, mebbe, a poem like this’ll
Exteriorise things in a thistle,
And gi’e him in this form forlorn
What Melville socht in vain frae Hawthorne....
Spirit o’ strife, destroy in turn
Syne this fule’s Paradise, syne that;
In thee’s in Calvaries that owrecome
Daith efter Daith let me be caught,
Or in the human form that hauds
Us in its ignominious thrall,
While on brute needs oor souls attend
Until disease and daith end all,
Or in the grey deluded brain,
Reflectin’ in anither field
The torments o’ its parent flesh
In thocht-preventin’ thocht concealed,
Or still in curst impossible mould,
Last thistle-shape men think to tak’,
The soul, frae flesh and thocht set free,
On Heaven’s strait if unseen rack.
There may be heicher forms in which
We can nae mair oor plicht define,
Because the agonies involved
’ll bring us their ain anodyne.
Yet still we suffer and still sall,
Altho’, puir fules, we mayna kent
As lang as like the thistle we
In coil and in recoil are pent.
And ferrer than mankind can look
Ghast shapes that free but to transfix
Twine rose-crooned in their agonies,
And strive agen the endless pricks.
The dooble play that bigs and braks
In endless victory and defeat
Is in your spikes and roses shown,
And a’ my soul is haggar’d wi’t....
Be like the thistle, O my soul,
Heedless o’ praise and quick to tak’ affront,
And growin’ like a mockery o’ a’
Maist life can want or thole,
And manifest forevermair
Contempt o’ ilka goal.
O’ ilka goal—save ane alane;
To be yoursel’, whatever that may be,
And as contemptuous o’ that,
Kennin’ nocht’s worth the ha’en,
But certainty that nocht can be,
And hoo that certainty to gain.
For this you still maun grow and grope
In the abyss wi’ ever-deepenin’ roots
That croon your scunner wi’ the grue
O’ hopeless hope
—And gin the abyss is bottomless,
Your growth’ll never stop!...
What earthquake chitters oot
In the Thistle’s oorie shape,
What gleids o’ central fire
In its reid heids escape,
And whatna coonter forces
In growth and ingrowth graip
In an eternal clinch
In this ootcuissen form
That winna be outcast,
But triumphs at the last
(Owre a’ abies itsel’
As fer as we can tell,
Sin’ frae the Eden o’ the world
Ilka man in turn is hurled,
And ilka gairden rins to waste
That was ever to his taste?)
_O keep the Thistle ’yont the wa’
Owre which your skeletons you’ll thraw._
I, in the Thistle’s land,
As you[13] in Russia where
Struggle in giant form
Proceeds for evermair,
In my sma’ measure ’bood
Address a similar task,
And for a share o’ your
Appallin’ genius ask.
Wha built in revelations
What maist men in reserves
(And only men confound!)
A better gift deserves
Frae ane wha like hissel
(As ant-heap unto mountain)
Needs bigs his life upon
The everloupin’ fountain
That frae the Dark ascends
Whaur Life begins, Thocht ends
—A better gift deserves
Than thae wheen yatterin’ nerves!
For mine’s the clearest insicht
O’ man’s facility
For constant self-deception,
And hoo his mind can be
But as a floatin’ iceberg
That hides aneth the sea
Its bulk: and hoo frae depths
O’ an unfaddomed flood
Tensions o’ nerves arise
And humours o’ the blood
—Keethin’s nane can trace
To their original place.
_Hoo mony men to mak’ a man
It tak’s he kens wha kens Life’s plan._
But there are flegsome deeps
Whaur the soul o’ Scotland sleeps
That I to bottom need
To wauk Guid kens what deid,
Play at stertle-a-stobie,
Wi’ nation’s dust for hobby,
Or wi’ God’s sel’ commerce
For the makin’ o’ a verse.
_“Melville, sea-compelling man,
Before whose wand Leviathan
Rose hoary-white upon the Deep,”[14]
What thou hast sown I fain ’ud reap
O’ knowledge ’yont the human mind
In keepin’ wi’ oor Scottish kind,
And, thanks to thee, may aiblins reach
To what this Russian has to teach,
Closer than ony ither Scot,
Closer to me than my ain thocht,
Closer than my ain braith to me,
As close as to the Deity
Approachable in whom appears
This Christ o’ the neist thoosand years._
As frae your baggit wife
You turned whenever able,
And often when you werena,
Unto the gamin’ table,
And opened wide to ruin
Your benmaist hert, aye brewin’
A horror o’ whatever
Seemed likely to deliver
You frae the senseless strife
In which alane is life,
—As Burns in Edinburgh
Breenged arse-owre-heid thoro’
A’ _it_ could be the spur o’
To pleuch his sauted furrow,
And turned frae a’ men honour
To what could only scunner
Wha thinks that common-sense
Can e’er be but a fence
To keep a soul worth ha’en
Frae what it s’ud be daein’
—Sae I in turn maun gie
My soul to misery,
Daidle disease
Upon my knees,
And welcome madness
Wi’ exceedin’ gladness
—Aye, open wide my hert
To a’ the thistle’s smert.
And a’ the hopes o’ men
Sall be like wiles then
To gar my soul betray
Its only richtfu’ way,
Or as a couthie wife
That seeks nae mair frae life
Than domesticity
E’en wi’ the likes o’ me—
As gin I could be carin’
For her or for her bairn
When on my road I’m farin’
—O I can spend a nicht
In ony man’s Delicht
Or wi’ ony wumman born
—But aye be aff the morn!
In a’ the inklin’s cryptic,
Then, o’ an epileptic,
I ha’e been stood in you
And droukit in their grue
Till I can see richt through
Ilk weakness o’ my frame
And ilka dernin’ shame,
And can employ the same
To jouk the curse o’ fame,
Lowsed frae the dominion
O’ popular opinion,
And risen at last abune
The thistle like a mune
That looks serenely doon
On what queer things there are
In an inferior star
That couldna be, or see,
Themsel’s, except in me.
_Wi’ burnt-oot hert and poxy face
I sall illumine a’ the place,
And there is ne’er a fount o’ grace
That isna in a similar case._
Let a’ the thistle’s growth
Be as a process, then,
My spirit’s gane richt through,
And needna threid again,
Tho’ in it sall be haud’n
For aye the feck o’ men
Wha’s queer contortions there
As memories I ken,
As memories o’ my ain
O’ mony an ancient pain.
But sin’ wha’ll e’er wun free
Maun tak’ like coorse to me,
A fillip I wad gi’e
Their eccentricity,
And leave the lave to dree
Their weirdless destiny.
It’s no’ withoot regret
That I maun follow yet
The road that led me past
Humanity sae fast,
Yet scarce can gi’e a fate
That is at last mair fit
To them wha tak’ that gait
Than theirs wha winna ha’e’t,
Seein’ that nae man can get
By ony airt or wile,
A destiny quite worth while
As fer as he can tell
—Or even you yoursel’!
And O! I canna thole
Aye yabblin’ o’ my soul,
And fain I wad be free
O’ my eternal me,
Nor fare mysel’ alane
—Withoot that tae be gane,
And this, I ha’e nae doot,
This road’ll bring aboot.
The munelicht that owre clear defines
The thistle’s shrill cantankerous lines
E’en noo whiles insubstantialises
Its grisly form and ’stead devises
A maze o’ licht, a siller-frame,
As ’twere God’s dream frae which it came,
Ne’er into bein’ coorsened yet,
The essence lowin’ pure in it,
As tho’ the fire owrecam’ the clay,
And left its wraith in endless day.
These are the moments when a’ sense
Like mist is vanished and intense,
Magic emerges frae the dense
Body o’ bein’ and beeks immense
As, like a ghinn oot o’ a bottle,
Daith rises frae’s when oor lives crottle.
These are the moments when my sang
Clears its white feet frae oot amang
My broken thocht, and moves as free
As souls frae bodies when they dee.
There’s naething left o’ me ava’
Save a’ I’d hoped micht whiles befa’.
Sic sang to men is little worth.
It has nae message for the earth.
Men see their warld turned tapsalteerie,
Drookit in a licht owre eerie,
Or sent birlin’ like a peerie—
Syne it turns a’ they’ve kent till then
To shapes they can nae langer ken.
Men canna look on nakit licht.
It flings them back wi’ darkened sicht,
And een that canna look at it,
Maun draw earth closer roond them yet
Or, their sicht tint, find nocht instead
That answers to their waefu’ need.
And yet this essence frae the clay
In dooble form aye braks away,
For, in addition to the licht,
There is an e’er-increasin’ nicht,
A nicht that is the bigger, and
Gangs roond licht like an airn band
That noo and then mair tichtly grips,
And snuffs it in a black eclipse,
But rings it maistly as a brough
The mune, till it’s juist bricht enough—
O wull I never lowse a licht
I canna dowse again in spite,
Or dull to haud within my sicht?
The thistle canna vanish quite.
Inside a’ licht its shape maun glint,
A spirit wi’ a skeleton in’t
The world, the flesh, ’ll bide in us
As in the fire the unburnt buss,
Or as frae sire to son we gang
And coontless corpses in us thrang.
And e’en the glory that descends
I kenna whence on _me_ depends,
And shapes itsel’ to what is left
Whaur I o’ me ha’e me bereft,
And still the form is mine, altho’
A force to which I ne’er could grow
Is movin’ in’t as ’twere a sea
That lang syne drooned the last o’ me
—That drooned afore the warld began
A’ that could ever come frae Man.
And as at sicna times am I,
I wad ha’e Scotland to my eye
Until I saw a timeless flame
Tak’ Auchtermuchty for a name,
And kent that Ecclefechan stood
As pairt o’ an eternal mood.
Ahint the glory comes the nicht
As Maori to London’s ruins,
And I’m amused to see the plicht
O’ Licht as’t in the black tide droons,
Yet even in the brain o’ Chaos
For Scotland I wad hain a place,
And let Tighnabruaich still
Be pairt and paircel o’ its will,
And Culloden, black as Hell,
A knowledge it has o’ itsel’.
Thou, Dostoevski, understood,
Wha had your ain land in your bluid,
And into it as in a mould
The passion o’ your bein’ rolled,
Inherited in turn frae Heaven
Or sources fer abune it even.
_Sae God retracts in endless stage
Through angel, devil, age on age,
Until at last his infinite natur’
Walks on earth a human cratur’
(Or less than human as to my een
The people are in Aiberdeen);
Sae man returns in endless growth
Till God in him again has scouth._
For sic a loup towards wisdom’s croon
Hoo fer a man maun base him doon,
Hoo plunge aboot in Chaos ere
He finds his needfu’ fittin’ there,
The matrix oot o’ which sublime
Serenity sall soar in time!
Ha’e I the cruelty I need,
Contempt and syne contempt o’ that,
And still contempt in endless meed
That I may never yet be caught
In ony satisfaction, or
Bird-lime that winna let me soar?
Is Scotland big enough to be
A symbol o’ that force in me,
In wha’s divine inebriety
A sicht abune contempt I’ll see?
For a’ that’s Scottish is in me,
As a’ things Russian were in thee,
And I in turn ’ud be an action
To pit in a concrete abstraction
My country’s contrair qualities,
And mak’ a unity o’ these
Till my love owre its history dwells,
As owretone to a peal o’ bells.
And in this heicher stratosphere
As bairn at giant at thee I peer....
_O Jean, in whom my spirit sees,
Clearer than through whisky or disease,
Its dernin’ nature, wad the searchin’ licht
Oor union raises poor’d owre me the nicht._
_I’m faced wi’ aspects o’ mysel’
At last wha’s portent nocht can tell,
Save that sheer licht o’ life that when we’re joint
Loups through me like a fire a’ else t’ aroint._
_Clear my lourd flesh, and let me move
In the peculiar licht o’ love,
As aiblins in Eternity men may
When their swack souls nae mair are clogged wi’ clay._
_Be thou the licht in which I stand
Entire, in thistle-shape, as planned,
And no’ hauf-hidden and hauf-seen as here
In munelicht, whisky, and in fleshly fear,_
_In fear to look owre closely at
The grisly form in which I’m caught,
In sic a reelin’ and imperfect licht
Sprung frae incongruous elements the nicht!_
_But wer’t by thou they were shone on,
Then wad I ha’e nae dreid to con
The ugsome problems shapin’ in my soul,
Or gin I hed—certes, nae fear you’d thole!_
_Be in this fibre like an eye,
And ilka turn and twist descry,
Hoo here a leaf, a spine, a rose—or as
The purpose o’ the poo’er that brings ’t to pass._
_Syne liberate me frae this tree,
As wha had there imprisoned me,
The end achieved—or show me at the least
Mair meanin’ in’t, and hope o’ bein’ released._
I tae ha’e heard Eternity drip water
(Aye water, water!), drap by drap
On the a’e nerve, like lichtnin’, I’ve become,
And heard God passin’ wi’ a bobby’s feet
Ootby in the lang coffin o’ the street
—Seen stang by chitterin’ knottit stang loup oot
Uncrushed by th’ echoes o’ the thunderin’ boot,
Till a’ the dizzy lint-white lines o’ torture made
A monstrous thistle in the space aboot me,
A symbol o’ the puzzle o’ man’s soul
—And in my agony been pridefu’ I could still
Tine nae least quiver or twist, watch ilka point
Like a white-het bodkin ripe my inmaist hert,
And aye wi’ clearer pain that brocht nae anodyne,
But rose for ever to a fer crescendo
Like eagles that ootsoar wi’ skinklan’ wings
The thieveless sun they blin’
—And pridefu’ still
That ’yont the sherp wings o’ the eagles fleein’
Aboot the dowless pole o’ Space,
Like leafs aboot a thistle-shank, my bluid
Could still thraw roses up
—And up!
O rootless thistle through the warld that’s pairt o’ you,
Gin you’d withstand the agonies still to come,
You maun send roots doon to the deeps unkent,
Fer deeper than it’s possible for ocht to gang,
Savin’ the human soul,
Deeper than God himsel’ has knowledge o’,
Whaur lichtnin’s canna probe that cleave the warld,
Whaur only in the entire dark there’s founts o’ strength
Eternity’s poisoned draps can never file,
And muckle roots thicken, deef to bobbies’ feet.
A mony-brainchin’ candelabra fills
The lift and’s lowin’ wi’ the stars;
The Octopus Creation is is wallopin’
In coontless faddoms o’ a nameless sea.
I am the candelabra, and burn
My endless candles to an Unkent God.
I am the mind and meanin’ o’ the octopus
That thraws its empty airms through a’ th’ Inane.
And a’ the bizzin’ suns ha’e bigged
Their kaims upon the surface o’ the sea.
My lips may feast for ever, but my guts
Ken naething o’ the Food o’ Gods.
“Let there be Licht,” said God, and there was
A little: but He lacked the poo’er
To licht up mair than pairt o’ space at aince,
And there is lots o’ darkness that’s the same
As gin He’d never spoken
—Mair darkness than there’s licht,
And dwarfin’t to a candle-flame,
A spalin’ candle that’ll sune gang oot.
—Darkness comes closer to us than the licht,
And is oor natural element. We peer oot frae’t
Like cat’s een bleezin’ in a goustrous nicht
(Whaur there is nocht to find but stars
That look like ither cats’ een),
Like cat’s een, and there is nocht to find
Savin’ we turn them in upon oorsels;
Cats canna.
Darkness is wi’ us a’ the time, and Licht
But veesits pairt o’ us, the wee-est pairt
Frae time to time on a short day atween twa nichts.
Nae licht is thrawn on _them_ by ony licht.
Licht thraws nae licht upon itsel’;
But in the darkness them wha’s een
Nae fleetin’ lichts ha’e dazzled and deceived
Find qualities o’ licht, keener than ony licht,
Keen and abidin’;
That show the nicht unto itsel’,
And syne the licht,
That queer extension o’ the dark,
That seems a separate and a different thing,
And, seemin’ sae, has lang confused the dark,
And set it at cross-purposes wi’ itsel’.
O little Life
In which Daith guises and deceives itsel’,
Joy that mak’s Grief a Janus,
Hope that is Despair’s fause-face,
And Guid and Ill that are the same,
Save as the chance licht fa’s!
And yet the licht is there,
Whether frae within or frae withoot.
The conscious Dark can use it, dazzled nor deceived.
The licht is there, and th’ instinct for it,
Pairt o’ the Dark and o’ the need to guise,
To deceive and be deceived,
But let us then be undeceived
When we deceive,
When we deceive oorsels.
Let us enjoy deceit, this instinct in us.
Licht cheenges naething,
And gin there is a God wha made the licht
We are adapted to receive,
_He_ cheenged naething,
And hesna kythed Hissel!
Save in this licht that fa’s whaur the Auld Nicht was,
Showin’ naething that the Darkness didna hide,
And gin it shows a pairt o’ that
Confoondin’ mair than it confides
Ev’n in that.
The epileptic thistle twitches
(A trick o’ wund or mune or een—or whisky).
A brain laid bare,
A nervous system,
The skeleton wi’ which men labour
And bring to life in Daith
—I, risen frae the deid, ha’e seen
My deid man’s eunuch offspring.
—The licht frae bare banes whitening evermair,
Frae twitchin’ nerves thrawn aff,
Frae nakit thocht,
Works in the Darkness like a fell disease,
A hungry acid and a cancer,
Disease o’ Daith-in-Life and Life-in-Daith.
O for a root in some untroubled soil,
Some cauld soil ’yont this fevered warld,
That ’ud draw darkness frae a virgin source,
And send it slow and easefu’ through my veins,
Release the tension o’ my grisly leafs,
Withdraw my endless spikes,
Move coonter to the force in me that hauds
Me raxed and rigid and ridiculous
—And let my roses drap
Like punctured ba’s that at a Fair
Fa’ frae the loupin’ jet!
—Water again!...
Omsk and the Calton turn again to dust,
The suns and stars fizz out with little fuss,
The bobby booms away and seems to bust,
And leaves the world to darkness and to us.
The circles of our hungry thought
Swing savagely from pole to pole.
Death and the Raven drift above
The graves of Sweeney’s body and soul.
My name is Norval. On the Grampian Hills
It is forgotten, and deserves to be.
So are the Grampian Hills and all the people
Who ever heard of either them or me.
What’s in a name? From pole to pole
Our interlinked mentality spins.
I know that you are Deosil, and suppose
That therefore I am Widdershins.
Do you reverse? Shall us? Then let’s.
Cyclone and Anti?—how absurd!
She should know better at her age.
Auntie’s an ass, upon my word.
This is the sort of thing they teach
The Scottish children in the school.
Poetry, patriotism, manners—
No wonder I am such a fool....
Hoo can I graipple wi’ the thistle syne,
Be intricate as it and up to a’ its moves?
A’ airts its sheenin’ points are loupin’ ’yont me,
Quhile still the firmament it proves.
And syne it’s like a wab in which the warld
Squats like a spider, quhile the mune and me
Are taigled in an endless corner o’t
Tyauvin’ fecklessly....
_The wan leafs shak’ atour us like the snaw.
Here is the cavaburd in which Earth’s tint.
There’s naebody but Oblivion and us,
Puir gangrel buddies, waunderin’ hameless in’t._
_The stars are larochs o’ auld cottages,
And a’ Time’s glen is fu’ o’ blinnin’ stew.
Nae freen’ly lozen skimmers: and the wund
Rises and separates even me and you._[15]
_I ken nae Russian and you ken nae Scots.
We canna tell oor voices frae the wund.
The snaw is seekin’ everywhere: oor herts
At last like roofless ingles it has f’und,_
_And gethers there in drift on endless drift,
Oor broken herts that it can never fill;
And still—its leafs like snaw, its growth like wund.—
The thistle rises and forever will!..._
The thistle rises and forever will,
Getherin’ the generations under’t.
This is the monument o’ a’ they were,
And a’ they hoped and wondered.
The barren tree, dry leafs, and cracklin’ thorns,
This is the mind o’ a’ humanity,
—The empty intellect that left to grow
’ll let nocht ither be.
Lo! It has choked the sunlicht’s gowden grain,
And strangled syne the white hairst o’ the mune.
Thocht that mak’s a’ the food o’ nocht but Thocht
Is reishlin’ grey abune....
_O fitly frae oor cancerous soil
May this heraldic horror rise!
The Presbyterian thistle flourishes,
And its ain roses crucifies...._
No’ Edinburgh Castle or the fields
O’ Bannockburn or Flodden
Are dernin’ wi’ the miskent soul
Scotland sae lang has hod’n.
It hands nae pew in ony kirk,
The soul Christ cam’ to save;
Nae R.S.A.’s ha’e pentit it,
F.S.A.’s fund its grave.
Is it alive or deid? I show
My hert—wha will can see.
The secret clyre in Scotland’s life
Has brust and reams through me,
A whummlin’ sea in which is heard
The clunk o’ nameless banes;
A grisly thistle dirlin’ shrill
Abune the broken stanes.
Westminster Abbey nor the Fleet,
Nor England’s Constitution, but
In a’ the michty city there,
You mind a’e fleggit slut,
As Tolstoi o’ Lucerne alane
Minded a’e beggar minstrel seen!
The woundit side draws a’ the warld.
Barbarians ha’e lizards’ een.
Glesca’s a gless whaur Magdalene’s
Discovered in a million crimes.
Christ comes again—wheesht, whatna bairn
In backlands cries betimes?
Hard faces prate o’ their success,
And pickle-makers awn the hills.
There is nae life in a’ the land
But this infernal Thistle kills....
Nae mair I see
As aince I saw
Mysel’ in the thistle
Harth and haw!
Nel suo profondo vidi che s’interna
Legato con amore in un volume
(Or else by Hate, fu’ aft the better Love)
Ciò che per l’universo si squaderna.
Sustanzia ed accidenti, e lor costume.
Quasi conflati insieme fer tal modo.
(The michty thistle in wha’s boonds I rove)
Ché ciò ch’io dico è un semplice lume.[16]
And kent and was creation
In a’ its coontless forms,
Or glitterin’ in raw sunlicht,
Or dark wi’ hurrying storms.
But what’s the voice
That sings in me noo?
—A’e hauf o’ me tellin’
The tither it’s fou!
It’s the voice o’ the Sooth
That’s held owre lang
My Viking North
Wi’ its siren sang....
_Fier comme un Ecossais._
If a’ that I can be’s nae mair
Than what mankind’s been yet, I’ll no’
Begink the instincts thistlewise
That dern—and canna show.
Damned threids and thrums and skinny shapes
O’ a’ that micht, and su’d, ha’ been
—Life onyhow at ony price!—
In sic I’ll no’ be seen!
_Fier comme un Ecossais._
The wee reliefs we ha’e in booze,
Or wun at times in carnal states,
May hide frae us but canna cheenge
The silly horrors o’ oor fates.
_Fier—comme un Ecossais!_
There’s muckle in the root
That never can wun oot,
Or’t owre what is ’ud sweep
Like a thunderstorm owre sheep.
But shadows whiles upcreep,
And heavy tremors leap ...
C’wa’, Daith, again, sned Life’s vain shoot,
And your ain coonsel keep!...
Time like a bien wife,
Truth like a dog’s gane—
The bien wife’s gane to the aumrie
To get the puir dog a bane.
Opens the aumrie door,
And lo! the skeleton’s there,
And the gude dog, Truth, has gotten
Banes for evermair....
_Maun I tae perish in the keel o’ Heaven,
And is this fratt upon the air the ply
O’ cross-brath’d cordage that in gloffs and gowls
Brak’s up the vision o’ the warld’s bricht gy?_
_Ship’s tackle and an eemis cairn o’ fraucht
Darker than clamourin’ veins are roond me yet,
A plait o’ shadows thicker than the flesh,
A fank o’ tows that binds me hand and fit._
_What gin the gorded fullyery on hie
And a’ the fanerels o’ the michty ship
Gi’e back mair licht than fa’s upon them ev’n
Gin sic black ingangs haud us in their grip?_
Grugous thistle, to my een
Your widdifow ramel evince,
Sibness to snakes wha’s coils
Rin coonter airts at yince,
And fain I’d follow each
Gin you the trick’ll teach.
Blin’ root to bleezin’ rose,
Through a’ the whirligig
O’ shanks and leafs and jags
What sends ye sic a rig?
Bramble yokin’ earth and heaven,
Till they’re baith stramulyert driven!
Roses to lure the lift
And roots to wile the clay
And wuppit brainches syne
To claught them ’midyards tae
Till you’ve the precious pair
Like hang’d men dancin’ there,
Wi’ mony a seely prickle
You’ll fleg a sunburst oot,
Or kittle earthquakes up
Wi’ an amusin’ root,
While, kilted in your tippet,
They still can mak’ their rippit....
And let me pit in guid set terms
My quarrel wi’ th’owre sonsy rose,
That roond aboot its devotees
A fair fat cast o’ aureole throws
That blinds them, in its mirlygoes,
To the necessity o’ foes.
Upon their King and System I
Glower as on things that whiles in pairt
I may admire (at least for them),
But wi’ nae claim upon my hert,
While a’ their pleasure and their pride
Ootside me lies—and there maun bide.
Ootside me lies—and mair than that,
For I stand still for forces which
Were subjugated to mak’ way
For England’s poo’er, and to enrich
The kinds o’ English, and o’ Scots,
The least congenial to my thoughts.
Hauf his soul a Scot maun use
Indulgin’ in illusions,
And hauf in gettin’ rid o’ them
And comin’ to conclusions
Wi’ the demoralisin’ dearth
O’ onything worth while on Earth....
I’m weary o’ the rose as o’ my brain,
And for a deeper knowledge I am fain
Than frae this noddin’ object I can gain.
Beauty is a’e thing, but it tines anither
(For, fegs, they never can be f’und thegither),
And ’twixt the twa it’s no’ for me to swither.
As frae the grun’ sae thocht frae men springs oot,
A ferlie that tells little o’ its source, I doot,
And has nae vera fundamental root.
And cauld agen my hert are laid
The words o’ Plato when he said,
“God o’ geometry is made.”
Frae my ain mind I fa’ away,
That never yet was feared to say
What turned the souls o’ men to clay,
Nor cared gin truth frae me ootsprung
In ne’er a leed o’ ony tongue
That ever in a heid was hung.
I ken hoo much oor life is fated
Aince its first cell is animated,
The fount frae which the flesh is jetted.
I ken hoo lourd the body lies
Upon the spirit when it flies
And fain abune its stars ’ud rise.
And see I noo a great wheel move,
And a’ the notions that I love
Drap into stented groove and groove?
It maitters not my mind the day,
Nocht maitters that I strive to dae,
—For the wheel moves on in its ain way.
I sall be moved as it decides
To look at Life frae ither sides;
Rejoice, rebel, its turn abides.
And as I see the great wheel spin
There flees a licht frae’t lang and thin
That Earth is like a snaw-ba’ in.
(To the uncanny thocht I clutch
—The nature o’ man’s soul is such
That it can ne’er wi’ life tine touch.
Man’s mind is in God’s image made,
And in its wildest dreams arrayed
In pairt o’ Truth is still displayed.
Then suddenly I see as weel
As me spun roon’ within the wheel,
The helpless forms o’ God and Deil.
And on a birlin’ edge I see
Wee Scotland squattin’ like a flea,
And dizzy wi’ the speed, and me!)
I’ve often thrawn the warld frae me,
Into the Pool o’ Space, to see
The Circles o’ Infinity.
Or like a flat stane gar’d it skite,
A Morse code message writ in licht
That yet I couldna read aricht
The skippin’ sparks, the ripples, rit
Like skritches o’ a grain o’ grit
’Neth Juggernaut in which I sit.
Twenty-six thoosand years it tak’s
Afore a’e single roond it mak’s,
And syne it melts as it were wax.
The Phœnix guise ’tll rise in syne
Is mair than Euclid or Einstein
Can dream o’ or’s in dreams o’ mine.
Upon the huge circumference are
As neebor points the Heavenly War
That dung doun Lucifer sae far,
And that upheaval in which I
Sodgered ’neth the Grecian sky
And in Italy and Marseilles,
And there isna room for men
Wha the haill o’ history ken
To pit a pin twixt then and then.
Whaur are Bannockburn and Flodden?
—O’ a’e grain like facets hod’n,
Little wars (twixt that which God in
Focht and won, and that which He
Took baith sides in hopelessly),
Less than God or I can see.
By whatna cry o’ mine oottopped
Sall be a’ men ha’e sung and hoped
When to a’e note they’re telescoped?
And Jesus and a nameless ape
Collide and share the selfsame shape
That nocht terrestrial can escape?
But less than this nae man need try.
He’d better be content to eye
The wheel in silence whirlin’ by.
Nae verse is worth a ha’et until
It can join issue wi’ the Will
That raised the Wheel and spins it still,
But a’ the music that mankind
’S made yet is to the Earth confined,
Poo’erless to reach the general mind,
Poo’erless to reach the neist star e’en,
That as a pairt o’ts sel’ is seen,
And only men can tell between.
Yet I exult oor sang has yet
To grow wings that’ll cairry it
Ayont its native speck o’ grit,
And I exult to find in me
The thocht that this can ever be,
A hope still for humanity.
For gin the sun and mune at last
Are as a neebor’s lintel passed,
The wheel’ll tine its stature fast,
And birl in time inside oor heids
Till we can thraw oot conscious gleids
That draw an answer to oor needs,
Or if nae answer still we find
Brichten till a’ thing is defined
In the huge licht-beams o’ oor kind,
And if we still can find nae trace
Ahint the Wheel o’ ony Face,
There’ll be a glory in the place,
And we may aiblins swing content
Upon the wheel in which we’re pent
In adequate enlightenment.
Nae ither thocht can mitigate
The horror o’ the endless Fate
A’thing ’s whirled in predestinate.
O whiles I’d fain be blin’ to it,
As men wha through the ages sit,
And never move frae aff the bit,
Wha hear a Burns or Shakespeare sing,
Yet still their ain bit jingles string,
As they were worth the fashioning.
Whatever Scotland is to me,
Be it aye pairt o’ a’ men see
O’ Earth and o’ Eternity
Wha winna hide their heids in’t till
It seems the haill o’ Space to fill,
As t’were an unsurmounted hill.
He canna Scotland see wha yet
Canna see the Infinite,
And Scotland in true scale to it.
Nor blame I muckle, wham atour
Earth’s countries blaw, a pickle stour,
To sort wha’s grains they ha’e nae poo’er.
E’en stars are seen thegither in
A’e skime o’ licht as grey as tin
Flyin’ on the wheel as t’were a pin.
Syne ither systems ray on ray
Skinkle past in quick array
While it is still the self-same day,
A’e day o’ a’ the million days
Through which the soul o’ man can gaze
Upon the wheel’s incessant blaze,
Upon the wheel’s incessant blaze
As it were on a single place
That twinklin’ filled the howe o’ space.
A’e point is a’ that it can be,
I wis nae man ’ll ever see
The rest o’ the rotundity.
Impersonality sall blaw
Through me as ’twere a bluffert o’ snaw
To scour me o’ my sense o’ awe,
A bluffert o’ snaw, the licht that flees
Within the Wheel, and Freedom gi’es
Frae Dust and Daith and a’ Disease,
—The drumlie doom that only weighs
On them wha ha’ena seen their place
Yet in creation’s lichtnin’ race,
In the movement that includes
As a tide’s resistless floods
A’ their movements and their moods,—
Until disinterested we,
O’ a’ oor auld delusions free,
Lowe in the wheel’s serenity
As conscious items in the licht,
And keen to keep it clear and bricht
In which the haill machine is dight,
The licht nae man has ever seen
Till he has felt that he’s been gi’en
The stars themsels insteed o’ een,
And often wi’ the sun has glowered
At the white mune until it cowered,
As when by new thocht auld’s o’erpowered.
Oor universe is like an e’e
Turned in, man’s benmaist hert to see,
And swamped in subjectivity.
But whether it can use its sicht
To bring what lies withoot to licht
To answer’s still ayont my micht.
But when that inturned look has brocht
To licht what still in vain it’s socht
Ootward maun be the bent o’ thocht.
And organs may develop syne
Responsive to the need divine
O’ single-minded humankin’.
The function, as it seems to me,
O’ Poetry is to bring to be
At lang, lang last that unity....
But wae’s me on the weary wheel!
Higgledy-piggledy in’t we reel,
And little it cares hoo we may feel.
Twenty-six thoosand years ’tll tak’
For it to threid the Zodiac
—A single roond o’ the wheel to mak’!
Lately it turned—I saw mysel’
In sic a company doomed to mell.
I micht ha’e been in Dante’s Hell.
It shows hoo little the best o’ men
E’en o’ themsels at times can ken,
—I sune saw _that_ when I gaed ben.
The lesser wheel within the big
That moves as merry as a grig,
Wi’ mankind in its whirligig
And hasna turned a’e circle yet
Tho’ as it turns we slide in it,
And needs maun tak’ the place we get,
I felt it turn, and syne I saw
John Knox and Clavers in my raw,
And Mary Queen o’ Scots ana’,
And Rabbie Burns and Weelum Wallace,
And Carlyle lookin’ unco gallus,
And Harry Lauder (to enthrall us).
And as I looked I saw them a’,
A’ the Scots baith big and sma’,
That e’er the braith o’ life did draw.
“Mercy o’ Gode, I canna thole
Wi’ sic an orra mob to roll.”
—“_Wheesht! It’s for the guid o’ your soul._”
“_But what’s the meanin’, what’s the sense?_”
—“_Men shift but by experience.
’Twixt Scots there is nae difference._
_They canna learn, sae canna move,
But stick for aye to their auld groove
—The only race in History who’ve_
_Bidden in the same category
Frae stert to present o’ their story,
And deem their ignorance their glory._
_The mair they differ, mair the same.
The wheel can whummle a’ but them,
—They ca’ their obstinacy ‘Hame,’_
_And ‘Puir Auld Scotland’ bleat wi’ pride,
And wi’ their minds made up to bide
A thorn in a’ the wide world’s side._
_There ha’e been Scots wha ha’e ha’en thochts,
They’re strewn through maist o’ the various lots
—Sic traitors are nae langer Scots!_”
“But in this huge ineducable
Heterogeneous hotch and rabble,
Why am _I_ condemned to squabble?”
“_A Scottish poet maun assume
The burden o’ his people’s doom,
And dee to brak’ their livin’ tomb._
_Mony ha’e tried, but a’ ha’e failed.
Their sacrifice has nocht availed.
Upon the thistle they’re impaled._
_You maun choose but gin ye’d see
Anither category ye
Maun tine your nationality._”
And I look at a’ the random
Band the wheel leaves whaur it fand ’em.
“Auch, to Hell,
I’ll tak’ it to avizandum.” ...
O wae’s me on the weary wheel,
And fain I’d understand them!
And blessin’ on the weary wheel
Whaurever it may land them!...
But aince Jean kens what I’ve been through
The nicht, I dinna doot it,
She’ll ope her airms in welcome true,
And clack nae mair aboot it....
* * * * *
The stars like thistle’s roses floo’er
The sterile growth o’ Space ootour,
That clad in bitter blasts spreids oot
Frae me, the sustenance o’ its root.
O fain I’d keep my hert entire,
Fain hain the licht o’ my desire,
But ech! the shinin’ streams ascend,
And leave me empty at the end.
For aince it’s toomed my hert and brain,
The thistle needs maun fa’ again.
—But a’ its growth ’ll never fill
The hole it’s turned my life intill!...
Yet ha’e I Silence left, the croon o’ a’.
No’ her, wha on the hills langsyne I saw
Liftin’ a foreheid o’ perpetual snaw.
No’ her, wha in the how-dumb-deid o’ nicht
Kyths, like Eternity in Time’s despite.
No’ her, withooten shape, wha’s name is Daith,
No’ Him, unkennable abies to faith
—God whom, gin e’er He saw a man, ’ud be
E’en mair dumfooner’d at the sicht than he.
—But Him, whom nocht in man or Deity,
Or Daith or Dreid or Laneliness can touch,
_Wha’s deed owre often and has seen owre much_.
O I ha’e Silence left,
—“And weel ye micht,”
Sae Jean’ll say, “efter sic a nicht!”
THE END.
FOOTNOTES
[1] From the Russian of Alexander Blok.
[2] Freely adapted from the Russian of Alexander Blok.
[3] From the Belgian poet, George Ramaekers.
[4] Adapted from the Russian of Zinaida Hippius.
[5] Suggested by the German of Else Lasker-Schüler.
[6] Suggested by the French of Edmond Rocher.
[7] Tragical crack (Dostoevski’s term).
[8] The line which precedes these in Mallarmé’s poem is “Aimai-je un
rêve?” and Wilfrid Thorley translates the passage thus:—
“Loved I Love’s counterfeit?
My doubts, begotten of the long night’s heat,
Dislimn the woodland till my triumph shows
As the flawed shadow of a frustrate rose.”
[9] _The General Strike (May 1926)._
[10] God-bearers.
[11] The All-Man or Pan-Human.
[12] Hermann Melville.
[13] Dostoevski.
[14] Quoted from Robert Buchanan.
[15] Dostoevski.
[16] Wicksteed’s translation of Dante’s Italian (Paradiso, canto xxxiii.
85-90) is as follows: “Within its depths I saw ingathered, bound by
love in one volume, the scattered leaves of all the universe; substance
and accidents and their relations, as though together fused, after such
fashion that what I tell of is one simple flame.”
GLOSSARY.
_Abaw_—abash, appal.
_Abies_—except.
_Abordage_—the act of getting on board.
_Aft’rins_—the remainder, off-scourings.
_Agley_—off the right line, wrong.
_Ahint_—behind.
_Aiblins_—perhaps.
_Aidle_—foul slop.
_Aiker_—motion, or break, made in water by fish swimming rapidly.
_Airgh_—lack, or what anything requires to bring it up to the level.
_Airts_—directions.
_Alist_—_to come alist_; to recover from faintness or decay.
_Aroint_—clear away.
_Arrears_—goes backward.
_Atour_—out from.
_Aucht-fit_—eight-foot.
_Aumrie_—cupboard.
_Awn_ (_to_)—to own.
_Avizandum_—to defer decision.
_Back-hauf_ (_to be worn to_)—practically worn out.
_Backlands_—Glasgow slum tenements.
_Baggit_—enceinte.
_Bairn-time_—a woman’s breeding-time.
_Barkin’ and fleein’_—on the verge of ruin.
_Barley bree_—whisky.
_Barrowsteel_ (_to tak’ my_)—to co-operate.
_Ba’s_—balls.
_Bauch_—sorry.
_Bawaw_—an oblique look of contempt or scorn.
_Beanswaup_—the hull of a bean, anything of no value.
_Beddiness_—silly importunacy.
_Beeks_—shows.
_Belly-thraw_—colic.
_Belth_—sudden swirl.
_Ben_ (_to gang_)—to go in.
_Benmaist_—inmost.
_Biel_—shelter.
_Bien_—complacent.
_Blash_—sudden onset.
_Blate_—bashful.
_Blebs_—drops.
_Blethers_—nonsense.
_Blinnin’ stew_—storm through which impossible to see.
_Blinterin’_—gleaming.
_Blottie O_—a school game.
_Bluffert_—squall.
_Bobby_—policeman.
“_Bood to_”—must.
_Boss_ (_of body_)—front.
_Bratts_—scum.
_Braw_—handsome.
_Breenge_—burst.
_Brough_—ring (round moon).
_Buddies_—folks.
_Buff nor stye_—one thing or another.
_Buik_—trunk (of body).
_Bursten kirn_—difficult harvest.
_Buss_—bush.
_Cairn_—pile.
_Camsteerie_—perverse, unmanageable.
_Cappilow_ (_to_)—outdistance.
_Carline_—old woman, witch.
_Cavaburd_—dense snowstorm.
_Chafts_—chops.
_Cheatrie_—deceit, fraud.
_Chitterin’_—trembling violently, shivering.
_Chowed_—chewed.
_Chowl_ (_to_)—twist, distort.
_Chuns_—sprouts or germs.
_Claft_—shrunken.
_Claith_—cloth.
_Claught_ (_to_)—to grab at.
_Cleg_—gad-fly.
_Cleiks_—the merest adumbration.
_Clints_—cliffs.
_Clyre_—tumour, gland.
_Clytach_—balderdash.
_Cod_—pillow.
_Come-doon_—degradation.
_Connached_—abused, spoiled.
_Coom_—comb.
_Coonter_—counter.
_Corbaudie comes in_—that is the obstacle.
_Cordage_—tackling of a ship.
_Corneigh_—enough (_lit._ cœur ennuyé, internally disquieted).
_Cottons_—cottar houses.
_Coupin’_—overturning, emptying.
_Courage-bag_—scrotum.
_Couthie_—comfortable.
_Coutribat_—struggle.
_Cree_ (_legs wi’_)—not safe to meddle with.
_Creel_—in a state of mental excitement or confusion or physical
agony.
_Crockats up_—on (one’s) dignity.
_Cross-brath’d_—braided.
_Cross-tap_—mizzen-mast.
_Crottle_—crumble away.
_Cuckold_—hoodwinked, diddled.
_Cude_—barrel.
_Cull_—testicle.
_Cullage_—genitals.
_Dander_—temper.
_Datchie_—sly, secret.
_Daunton_—overawe.
_Deef_—deaf, unimpressionable.
_Deemless_—countless.
_Derf_—taciturn, cruel.
_Dern_—hide.
_Ding_—bang down.
_Doited_—mad.
_Donnert_—dazed, stupefied.
_Dottlin’_—maundering.
_Doup_—backside.
_Dour_—intractable.
_Dowf_—hollow, gloomy, inert.
_Dowless_—imponderable.
_Dowse_—quench.
_Dozent_—stupid.
_Drobs_—falls like hail.
_Drookit_—soaked.
_Drumlie_—troubled, discoloured.
_Dumb-deid_—midnight.
_Dwamin’_—overpowering.
_Dwinin’_—dwindling.
_Eel-ark_—breeding ground for eels.
_Eemis_—ill-poised.
_Een_—eyes.
_Eident_—busy.
_Eisenin’_—lustful.
_Elbuck_—elbow.
_Ettle_—aspire.
_Faburdun_—faux bourdon.
_Fair_—completely.
_Fanerels_—accessories.
_Fank o’ tows_—coil of ropes.
_Fankles_—becomes clumsy.
_Fantice_—whimsicality.
_Farles_—filaments of ash.
_Fash_—trouble.
_Feck_—majority.
_Fecklessly_—impotently.
_Ferlies_—wonders.
_Fey_—fated.
_Fidge_—move.
_Figuration_—harmony.
_File_—defile.
_Flauchter_—flutters.
_Flaught_—abased.
_Flech_—flea.
_Fleg_—frighten.
_Flet_—flit.
_Forfochen_—completely tired out.
_Forgether_—meet.
_Fork-in-the-wa’_—means of diverting share of labour pains to husband.
_Fou’_—drunk.
_Foudrie_—lightning.
_Fousome_—disgusting.
_Fratt_—fretwork.
_Fraucht_—cargo.
_Freaths_—plumes of foam or froth.
_Fremt_—friendless, isolated.
_Foziest_—most stupid.
_Fullyery_—(_lit._) foliage.
_Gaadies_—bloomers, howlers, gaffes.
_Gaff_—hook for fish.
_Galliard_—rapid dance.
_Gallus_—reckless.
_Gammons_—feet.
_Gangrel_—wanderer.
_Ganien_—rodomontade.
_Gantin’_—yawning.
_Gantrees_—planks for putting barrel on.
_Gausty_—ghastly, ascetic.
_Gaw_ (_to have a_)—to have a catch upon.
_Gealed_—congealed.
_Geg_—trick, deception.
_Gell_—_on the gell_, on the go.
_Gemmell_—double harmony.
_Get_—bastard.
_Gey_—very.
_Geylies_—very much.
_Gill-ha’_—pub of all weathers, hostelry of life.
_Gird_—hoop.
_Glaur_—mud.
_Gleg_—eager.
_Gleids_—sparks.
_Glisk_—gleam, glance.
_Glit_—slime.
_Gloffs_—darknesses appearing denser than other parts of atmosphere.
_Glower_—gaze at.
_Goam_—gaze stupidly at.
_Gorded_—frosted.
_Goustrous_—frightful.
_Gowk-storm_—storm of short duration (sub-sense of foolish fuss).
_Gowls_—hollows, opposite of gloffs.
_Gree_ (_to bear off_)—carry off the palm.
_Grieshuckle_—embers.
_Grue_—revulsion.
_Grugous_—ugly.
_Gruntle_—pig’s nose.
_Gurly_—savage.
_Guts_—bowels.
_Gy_—spectacle.
_Haggis_—_unknown_.
_Hain_—preserve.
_Hair_ (_kaimed to lift_)—on the go.
_Hairst_—harvest.
_Happit_—covered.
_Harns_—brains.
_Harth_—lean.
_Hauflins_—adolescent boys.
_Haw_—hollow.
_Heich-skeich_—irresponsible.
_Hod’n_—hidden.
_Howd_—shorn down.
_Howe_—hollow.
_How-dumb-deid_—midnight.
_Howff_—public-house.
_Hwll_—ululation.
_Ilka_—every.
_Ingangs_—intestines.
_Ingles_—hearths.
_Inklins_—intuitions.
_Jag_—prick.
_Jalouse_—guess.
_Jaup_—splash.
_Jizzen_—child-bed, _lit._ in the straw.
_Jouk_—dodge.
_Kaa_—drive.
_Kaim_—comb.
_Keethins_—circles betraying fish’s movements.
_Kelter_—waggle.
_Keltie_—bumper.
_Kilted_ (_in a tippit_)—hung in a noose.
_Kink_ (_to_)—bend or twist.
_Kirk or mill_ (_to mak’ a_)—to do the best one can.
_Kist_—chest, breast.
_Kittle_ (_adj._)—ticklish.
_Kittle_ (_to_)—tickle.
_Knool_—pin or peg.
_Kyths_—appears, shows.
_Larochs_—foundations.
_Lave_—rest.
_Lear_—learning.
_Leed_—strain.
_Liddenin’_—going backwards and forwards.
_Lift_—sky.
_Little-bodies_—fairies.
_Lochan_—little loch.
_Loppert_—coagulated.
_Lourd_—heavy, over-charged, cloudy.
_Lowe_—flame.
_Lowse_—free, loosen.
_Lozen_—window.
_Lugs_—ears.
_Maikless_—matchless.
_Mapamound_—map of the world.
_Marrow_ (_winsome_)—a creditable limb.
_Mells_—mixes.
_Mirlygoes_—dazzle.
_Mocage_—banter, irony, contempt.
_Mochiness_—closeness.
_Moniplies_—intestines.
_Moosewob_—spider’s web.
_Muckle_—big.
_Muckle Toon_ (_p. 17_)—Langholm in Dumfriesshire.
_Mum_—silent.
_Munkie_—rope with noose at end.
_Munks_—swings away.
_Mutchkin_—liquor measure, half-bottle.
_Nae mowse_—perilous.
_Natheless_—nevertheless.
_Natter_—rant.
_Neist_—next.
_Nesh_—full of awareness.
_Nocht_—nothing.
_Oorie_—weird.
_Ootby_—outside.
_Ootcuissen_—outcast.
_Ootrie_—_outré_.
_Orra_—not up to much.
_Peepy-show_—cinema.
_Peerie_—spinning-top.
_Penny wheep_—small ale.
_Pickle_—small quantity.
_Pirn_—reel.
_Plumm_—deep pool.
_Pokiness_—congestion.
_Prick-sang_—compositions.
_Quean_—lass, woman.
_Quenry_—reminiscences of dealings with women.
_Raff_ (_of rain_)—a few streaks of rain.
_Ragments_—odds and ends.
_Ramel_—branches.
_Ratt-rime_—incantations for killing rats.
_Rax_—strain.
_Recoll_—reminiscences.
_Reishlin’_—rustling.
_Reistit_—dried.
_Ripe_—search.
_Rippit_—rumpus.
_Ripples_—diarrhœa.
_Rit_—scrape.
_Rived_—torn.
_Rooky_—misty.
_Root-hewn_—awkward.
_Rouk_—smoke, mist.
_Row’d_—rolled, wrapped up.
_Rowin’_—rolling.
_Rumple-fyke_—itch in anus.
_Runkled_—wrinkled.
_Samyn_—deck of ship.
_Sclatrie_—obscenities.
_Scount_—small example.
_Scouth_—scope.
_Scunner_ (_to_)—disgust.
_Scunnersome_—repulsive.
_Seilfu’_—blissful.
_Sentrices_—scaffolding.
_Ser’_—serve.
_Shasloch_—loose straw, litter.
_Sheckle_—wrist.
_Sibness_—relationship.
_Siccar_ (_to mak’_)—to make certain.
_Sinnen_—sinew.
_Shoon_—shoes.
_Skime_—gleam.
_Skinklan’_—shining, twinkling.
_Skirl-i’-the-pan_—fried oatmeal.
_Slorp_—lap up, slobber over.
_Slounge_—sharp fall.
_Sonsy_—contented.
_Spalin’_—burning away.
_Spiel_—climb.
_Spier_—ask.
_Splairgin’_—spluttering.
_Stang_—paroxysm.
_Sta’-tree_—pole for tethering cattle to.
_Steekin’_—shutting.
_Stegh_—glut.
_Stented_—appointed.
_Stertle-a-stobie_—exhalations.
_Stour_—dust.
_Stramash_—rumpus.
_Stramulyert_—panic-stricken.
_Strawns_—strings or chains.
_Swack_—active, supple.
_Swaw_—ripple.
_Swippert_—lively.
_Swith wi’ virr_—vehement.
_Swither_—hesitate.
_Syne_—thereafter.
_Taigled_—entangled.
_Tapsalteerie_—topsy-turvy.
_Thieveless_—impotent.
_Thorter-ills_—paralytic seizures.
_Thow_—thaw.
_Thowless_—impotent.
_Thrang_—busy.
_Thring_—shrug.
_Toom (to)_—empty.
_Toories_—pom-poms.
_Twaesome_—the two of them.
_Tyauve_ (_to_)—struggle.
_Ugsome_—ugly, horrid.
_Ullage_—deficiency in contents of barrel.
_Unco_—very.
_Unkennable_—unknowledgable.
_Vennel_—lane, narrow street.
_Vieve_—vivid.
_Wab_—web.
_Wae_—woeful.
_Waesome_—woeful.
_Waesucks_—alas.
_Wanchancy_—unfortunate.
_Waun’ert_—confused.
_Waur_—worse.
_Weird_—fate.
_Weirdless_—worthless.
_Wheengin’_—complaining.
_Wheesht_—hush.
_Whummle_—overturn.
_Widdifow_—perverse.
_Windlestrae_—straw.
_Wizened_—shrunk.
_Worm-i’-the-cheek_—toothache.
_Wuppit_—winding, wound round.
_Yabblin’_—gabbling.
_Yank_—throw.
_Ygdrasil_—(Celtic) Tree of Life.
_Printed in Great Britain by_
WILLIAM BLACKWOOD & SONS LTD.
*** End of this LibraryBlog Digital Book "A drunk man looks at the thistle" ***
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