A Drunk Man Looks at The Thistle

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?...

Yank oot your orra boughs, my hert!

God gied man speech and speech created thocht,

He gied man speech but to the Scots gied nocht

Barrin’ this clytach that they’ve never brocht

To onything but sic a Blottie O

As some bairn’s copybook micht show,

A spook o’ soond that frae the unkent grave

In which oor nation lies loups up to wave

Sic leprous chuns as tatties have

That cellar-boond send spindles gropin’

Towards ony hole that’s open,

Like waesome fingers in the dark that think

They still may widen the ane and only chink

That e’er has gi’en mankind a blink

O’ Hope—tho’ ev’n in that puir licht

They s’ud ha’e seen their hopeless plicht.

This puir relation o’ my topplin’ mood,

This country cousin, streak o’ churl-bluid,

This hopeless airgh ’twixt a’ we can and should,

This Past that like Astarte’s sting I feel,

This arrow in Achilles’ heel.

Yank oot your orra boughs, my hert!

Mebbe we’re in a vicious circle cast,

Mebbe there’s limits we can ne’er get past,

Mebbe we’re sentrices that at the last

Are flung aside, and no’ the pillars and props

O’ Heaven foraye as in oor hopes.

Oor growth at least nae steady progress shows,

Genius in mankind like an antrin rose

Abune a jungly waste o’ effort grows,

But to Man’s purpose it mak’s little odds,

And seems irrelevant to God’s....