Poems, Scots and English

Chapter 32: Antiphilus of Byzantium

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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.

Antiphilus of Byzantium

Anth. Pal. ix. 546.

Give me a mat on the deck,

When the awnings sound to the blows of the spray,

And the hearthstones crack with the flames a-back

And the pot goes bubbling away.

Give me a boy to cook my broth;

For table a ship’s plank lacking a cloth,

And never a fork or knife;

And, after a game with a rusty pack,

The bo’sun’s whistle to pipe us back—

That’s the fortune fit for a king,

For Oh! I love common life!

1895