Poems, Scots and English

Chapter 21: To Lionel Phillips

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About This Book

A mixed collection of poems presented in Lowland Scots vernacular alongside English verse, arranged to contrast rustic, conversational pieces with more formal lyrics. The poems shift among pastoral scenes, local anecdote, satirical religious and civic commentary, classical allusion, and wartime or elegiac reflection. Tones range from comic and colloquial to grave and contemplative, with recurrent attention to memory, community, landscape, and moral questioning, and an emphasis on dialectal expression woven into traditional poetic forms.

To Lionel Phillips⁠[8]

Time, they say, must the best of us capture,

And travel and battle and gems and gold

No more can kindle the ancient rapture,

For even the youngest of hearts grows old.

But in you, I think, the boy is not over;

So take this medley of ways and wars

As the gift of a friend and a fellow-lover

Of the fairest country under the stars.

1909