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The collection gathers dialect songs and lyrics rooted in Angus, depicting rural and coastal life through concise, musical poems. Seasonal labor, local customs, Hallowe’en rituals, and the coming and going of ships provide recurring settings. Voices range from wry, comic sketches of small‑town behaviour to elegiac meditations on longing, loss, and memory, often anchored by vivid natural imagery and plainspoken phrasing. Short narrative pieces and lyrical fragments alternate, and the volume closes with a couple of poems presented in standard English.
Boughs of the pine and stars between,
In woods where shadows fill the air,
Oh, who may rest that once has been
A shadow there?
Sounds of the night and tears between,
The grey owl hooting, dimly heard;
Can footsteps reach those lands unseen,
Or wings of bird?
Days of the years and worlds between,
Still through the boughs the stars may burn,
The heart may break for lands unseen,
For woods wherein its life has been,
But not return.