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....
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!
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.
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.
—“And weel ye micht,”
Sae Jean’ll say, “efter sic a nicht!”