Chapter II: Part 2

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:—