Chapter I: Part 1

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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?...