Eggplant.place

36d

Duin’ àrd, tana
’s fiasag bheag air,
’s locair ’na làimh…

—“Cisteachan-Laighe” (“Coffins”)
from Creachadh na Clarsaich / Plundering the Harp (Macdonald, 1982) by Ruaraidh MacThòmais (Derick Thomson, 1921–2012) – born #OTD, 5 Aug. A 🎂 🧵

1/7

https://www.scottishpoetrylibrary.org.uk/poem/cisteachan-laighe/

#Scottish #literature #Gaidhlig #Gaelic #poem #poetry #20thcentury

Cisteachan-Laighe
Ruaraidh MacThòmais

Duin’ àrd, tana
’s fiasag bheag air,
’s locair ’na làimh:
gach uair theid mi seachad
air bùth-shaoirsneachd sa’ bhaile,
’s a thig gu mo chuinnlean fàileadh na min-sàibh,
thig gu mo chuimhne cuimhne an àit ud,
le na cisteachan-laighe,
na h-ùird ’s na tairgean,
na saibh ’s na sgeilbean,
is mo sheanair crom,
is sliseag bho shliseag ga locradh
bhon bhòrd thana lom.

Mus robh fhios agam dè bh’ ann bàs;
beachd, bloigh fios, boillsgeadh
den dorchadas, fathann de’n t-sàmhchair.
’S nuair a sheas mi aig uaigh,
là fuar Earraich, cha dainig smuain
thugam air na cisteachan-laighe
a rinn esan do chàch:
’sann a bha mi ’g iarraidh dhachaigh,
far am biodh còmhradh, is tea, is blàths.

Is anns an sgoil eile cuideachd,
san robh saoir na h-inntinn a’ locradh,
cha tug mi ’n aire do na cisteachan-laighe,
ged a bha iad ’nan suidhe mun cuairt orm;
cha do dh’ aithnich mi ’m brèid Beurla,
an liomh Gallda bha dol air an fhiodh,
cha do leugh mi na facail air a’ phràis,
cha do thuig mi gu robh mo chinneadh a’ dol bàs.
Gus an dainig gaoth fhuar an Earraich-sa
a locradh a’ chridhe;
gus na dh’ fhairich mi na tairgean a’ dol tromham,
’s cha shlànaich tea no còmhradh an cràdh.

ALT

Coffins
Derick Thomson

A tall thin man
with a short beard,
and a plane in his hand:
whenever I pass
a joiner’s shop in the city,
and the scent of sawdust comes to my nostrils,
memories return of that place,
with the coffins,
the hammers and nails,
saws and chisels,
and my grandfather, bent,
planing shavings
from a thin, bare plank.

Before I knew what death was;
or had any notion, a glimmering
of the darkness, a whisper of the stillness.
And when I stood at his grave,
on a cold Spring day, not a thought
came to me of the coffins
he made for others:
I merely wanted home
where there would be talk, and tea, and warmth.

And in the other school also,
where the joiners of the mind were planing,
I never noticed the coffins,
though they were sitting all round me;
I did not recognise the English braid,
the Lowland varnish being applied to the wood,
I did not read the words on the brass,
I did not understand that my race was dying.
Until the cold wind of this Spring came
to plane the heart;
until I felt the nails piercing me,
and neither tea nor talk will heal the pain.

ALT

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36d

Each night she fills, from the fabled
well of disappointment, a kettle
for her hottie…

—Kathleen Jamie, “Mrs McKellar, Her Martyrdom”
from The Edinburgh Book of Twentieth-Century Scottish Poetry (Edinburgh University Press, 2005)

https://edinburghuniversitypress.com/book-the-edinburgh-book-of-twentieth-century-scottish-poetry.html

#Scottish #literature #poem #poetry #marriage #humour

Mrs McKellar, Her Martyrdom
Kathleen Jamie

Each night she fills, from the fabled
well of disappointment, a kettle
for her hottie. Lying
in his apportioned bed:
Mr McKellar – annulled
beside his trouser press.

Who mentions, who defers to whom
on matters concerning
redecorating the living room,
milk delivery, the damp
stain spreading on the ceiling

when a word is a kind of touch?
Speaking of which, and they don't,
the garden needs attention
and the bedroom window frames,
exquisitely, the darkening hills,
a sky teased with mauve.

But he won't notice, or smell her burning
fix it! fix it!
won't look up the number
of Roofer and Son about that
slightly bewildering stain,

and she'll keep schtum.
Medieval in a dressing gown,
she'd rather display
toward an indifferent world
the means of her agony:
a broken toilet seat,

or die, lips sealed, regarding
the rotting window sills, that
wobbling shelf, which she could
as it happens, repair herself,
but won't, on principle.

ALT

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22d

…fabulous film-noir stills of Central Station
of freezing fog silvering the chilled, stilled parks
of the glamorous past
where drops on a rainmate are sequins
in the lamplight, in the black-and-white…

—Liz Lochhead, “Some Old Photographs”

Today, 19 August, is World Photography Day

https://www.glasgowtimes.co.uk/resources/images/8209217/

#Scottish #literature #poem #poetry #photography #WorldPhotographyDay

Some Old Photographs
Liz Lochhead

Weather evocative as scent

the romance of dark stormclouds
in big skies over the low wide river
of long shadows and longer shafts of light

of smoke
fabulous film-noir stills of Central Station
of freezing fog silvering the chilled, stilled parks
of the glamorous past
where drops on a rainmate are sequins
in the lamplight, in the black-and-white

your young, still-lovely mother laughs, the
hem of her sundress whipped up
by a wind on a beach
somewhere doon the watter
before you were even born

all the dads in hats
are making for Central at five past five
in the snow, in the rain, in the sudden what-a-scorcher,
in the smog, their
belted dark overcoats white-spattered by the starlings

starlings swarming
in that perfect and permanent cloud
above what was
never really this photograph
but always all the passing now
and noise and stink and smoky breath of George Square
wee boays, a duchess, bunting, there’s a
big launch on the Clyde
and that boat is yet to sail

ALT

Central Station, Glasgow 1960. © Newsquest (H&T) Glasgow Herald and Times. A black-and-white photo of the stairs leading to the concourse in Glasgow’s Central Station, 1960. Figures of men and women are silhouetted against the horizontal bars of the staircase. At the top, a crowd of people wait for trains. Advert hoardings for Capstan Cigarettes and Johnnie Walker whisky hang in the steamy, smoky air above the crowd.

ALT

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22d

Edwin Morgan died #OnThisDay, 19 August, 2010. “Riddle”, the final poem of Morgan’s final collection, 𝘋𝘳𝘦𝘢𝘮𝘴 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘖𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘳 𝘕𝘪𝘨𝘩𝘵𝘮𝘢𝘳𝘦𝘴 (Mariscat, 2010), is a translation of one of the 10th-century Anglo-Saxon Exeter Book riddles, itself a translation of a Latin original by the poet Aldhelm (c639–709 CE)

#Scottish #literature #EdwinMorgan #poem #poetry #translation #riddle #AngloSaxon #medieval

Riddle
by Edwin Morgan

Up beyond the universe and back
Down to the tiniest chigger in the finger –
I outstrip the moon in brightness,
I outrun midsummer suns.
I embrace the seas and other waters,
I am fresh and green as the fields I form.
I walk under hell, I flow over the heavens.
I am the land, I am the ocean.
I claim this honour, I claim its worth.
I am what I claim. What is my name?

ALT

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19d

Tom Leonard
“Jist ti Let Yi No”
(from the American of Carlos Williams)

ahv drank
thi speshlz
that wurrin
thi frij

n thit
yiwurr probbli
hodn back
furthi pahrti

awright
they wur great
thaht stroang
thaht cawld

Audio on Penn Sound:

https://media.sas.upenn.edu/pennsound/authors/Leonard/Tom-Leonard_Jist-ti-Let-Yi-No.mp3

#Scottish #literature #language #Glasgow #Glaswegian #poem #poetry #TomLeonard #WilliamCarlosWilliams

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19d

efturryd geenuz iz speel
iboot whut wuz right
nwhut wuz rang
boot this nthat
nthi nix thing
a sayzti the bloke
nwhut izzit yi caw
yir joab jimmy…

—Tom Leonard, “liason coordinator”
from GHOSTIE MEN (Galloping Dog Press, 1980)

Tom Leonard (1944–2018) was born #OTD, 22 August

https://www.tomleonard.co.uk/online-poetry-and-prose/liasoncoordinator.html

#Scottish #literature #language #Glasgow #Glaswegian #poem #poetry #TomLeonard

efturryd geenuz iz speel
iboot whut wuz right
nwhut wuz rang
boot this nthat
nthi nix thing

a sayzti the bloke
nwhut izzit yi caw
yir joab jimmy

am a liason co-ordinator
hi sayz oh good ah sayz
a liason co-ordinator

jist whut this erria needs
whut way aw thi unimploymint
inaw thi bevvyin
nthi boayz runnin amock
nthi hoossyz fawnty bits
nthi wummin n tranquilisers
it last thiv sent uz
a liason co-ordinator

sumdy wia digree
in fuck knows whut
get peyd fur no known
whut thi fuck ti day way it

ALT

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19d

this is thi
six a clock
news thi
man said n
thi reason
a talk wia
BBC accent
iz coz yi
widny wahnt
mi ti talk
aboot thi
trooth wia
voice lik
wanna yoo
scruff. if
a toktaboot
thi trooth
lik wanna yoo
scruff yi
widny thingk
it wuz troo.
jist wanna yoo
scruff tokn…

—Tom Leonard, “The Six O’Clock News”

#Scottish #literature #language #Glasgow #Glaswegian #poem #poetry #TomLeonard

The Six O’Clock News
Tom Leonard

this is thi
six a clock
news thi
man said n
thi reason
a talk wia
BBC accent
iz coz yi
widny wahnt
mi ti talk
aboot thi
trooth wia
voice lik
wanna yoo
scruff. if
a toktaboot
thi trooth
lik wanna yoo
scruff yi
widny thingk
it wuz troo.
jist wanna yoo
scruff tokn.
thirza right
way ti spell
ana right way
to tok it. this
is me tokn yir
right way a
spellin. this
is ma trooth.
yooz doant no
thi trooth
yirsellz cawz
yi canny talk
right. this is
the six a clock
nyooz. belt up.

ALT

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19d

And their judges spoke with one dialect,
but the condemned spoke with many voices.

And the prisons were full of many voices,
but never the dialect of the judges.

And the judges said:
“No-one is above the Law.”

—Tom Leonard, “And the judges said”
from Situations Theoretical & Contemporary (1986)

#Scottish #literature #language #poem #poetry #TomLeonard

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19d

I like seeing nurse frieda knitting
as I like watching my wife knitting
as I liked watching my mother knitting
though she was more of a dabber
(plain and purl, plain and purl)…

—Tom Leonard, “in hospital”
published in access to the silence: poems and posters 1984–2000 (etruscan, 2004)

https://www.scottishpoetrylibrary.org.uk/poem/hospital/

#Scottish #literature #poem #poetry #TomLeonard

in hospital
Tom Leonard

I like seeing nurse frieda knitting
as I like watching my wife knitting
as I liked watching my mother knitting
though she was more of a dabber
(plain and purl, plain and purl)

it’s not
“women being in their place”
or knitting the chains that keep them down

just

the future, knitting the future
the present peaceful, quiet
as if

the same woman knitting
for a thousand years

ALT

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19d

yi mist yirsell so yi did
we aw skiptwirr ferz njumptaffit thi lights
YIZIR AW PINE THEY FERZ THIMORRA
o it wizza scream
thaht big shite wiz dayniz nut…

—Tom Leonard, “A Scream”
from Six Glasgow Poems (1967)

https://www.tomleonard.co.uk/online-poetry-and-prose.html

#Scottish #literature #language #Glasgow #Glaswegian #poem #poetry #TomLeonard

A Scream
Tom Leonard

yi mist yirsell so yi did
we aw skiptwirr ferz njumptaffit thi lights
YIZIR AW PINE THEY FERZ THIMORRA
o it wizza scream
thaht big shite wiz dayniz nut

tellnyi jean
we wirraw shoutn backit im
rrose shoutit shi widny puhllit furra penshin
o yi shooda seeniz face
hi didny no wherrty look

thing iz tay
thirz nay skool thimorra
thi daft kunt wullny even getiz bluddy ferz

ALT

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19d

right inuff
ma language is disgraceful
ma maw tellt mi
ma teacher tellt mi
thi doactir tellt mi
thi priest tellt mi…

—Tom Leonard, “right inuff”
published in GHOSTIE MEN (Galloping Dog Press, 1980)

#Scottish #literature #language #Glasgow #Glaswegian #poem #poetry #TomLeonard

“right enuff”
by Tom Leonard

right inuff
ma language is disgraceful
ma maw tellt mi
ma teacher tellt mi
thi doactir tellt mi
thi priest tellt mi

ma boss tellt mi
ma landlady in carrington street tellt mi
thi lassie ah tried tay get aff way in 1969 tellt mi
sum wee smout thit thoat ah hudny read chomsky tellt mi
a calvinist communist thit thoat ah wuz revisionist tellt mi
po-faced literati grimly kerryin thi burden a thi past tellt mi
po-faced literati grimly kerryin thi burden a thi future tellt mi
ma wife tellt mi jist-tay-get-inty-this-poem tellt mi
ma wainz came hame fray school an tellt mi
jist aboot ivry book ah oapnd tellt mi
even thi introduction tay thi Scottish National Dictionary tellt mi

ach well
all livin language is sacred
fuck the lohta thim.

ALT

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17d

From the calm and stillness of a Scottish morning,
as life becomes uncertain and strange
we send you a waking breath…

—“Our Waking Breath: A Poem-letter from Scotland to Ukraine”, curated by Kathleen Jamie in 2022

Today, 24 August, is the Independence Day of Ukraine
🇺🇦🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=StrAumuwZj8

#Scottish #literature #poem #poetry #Ukraine #IndependenceDayofUkraine

watch?v=StrAumuwZj8

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13d

nuair a tha mi fhìn nam sheasamh
aig ceann Loch an Dala
’s mi a’ coimhead thar cuain geur
a’ deàrrsadh ’s a’ deàlradh
fo ghrian na sìorraidheachd
chan fhaic mi sgath dhen ghlasadh cheilteach…

—Iain S. Mac a’ Phearsain, “ceann Loch an Dala”
published in Friends & Kangaroos: New Writing Scotland 17

#Scottish #literature #Gaidhlig #Gaelic #poem #poetry #Islay

ceann Loch an Dala
Iain S. Mac a’ Phearsain

nuair a tha mi fhìn nam sheasamh
aig ceann Loch an Dala
’s mi a’ coimhead thar cuain geur
a’ deàrrsadh ’s a’ deàlradh
fo ghrian na sìorraidheachd
chan fhaic mi sgath dhen ghlasadh cheilteach
a’ ciaradh Ile
na eilean shìthichean faoin
ach soitheach mo shinnsearan
a’ triall dhan iar
Gilleasbaig is Eòghann
a’ cur cùl ri Cill’ Nèimh
an aghaidh leis a’ ghaoith
’s an làmhan air a’ chliathaich
blàth ’s cha mhòr air chrith.

ALT

head of Loch Indaal
John Scott MacPherson

personally, when I stand
at the head of Loch Indaal
and look out
over a razor-sharp sea
shining and radiating
under an everlasting sun
I see none of the Celtic twilight
reducing Islay
to an island of vacant faeries
but my ancestors’ ship
heading for the west
Archibald and Hugh
turning backs on Kilnave
facing downwind
their hands on the gunwhales
warm and almost shaking.

ALT

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13d

A boy leaves a small house
Of sea light. He leaves
The sea smells, creel
And limpet and cod.

The boy walks between steep
Stone houses, echoing
Gull cries, the all-around
Choirs of the sea…

—George Mackay Brown, “Island School”
published in Carve the Runes: Selected Poems (Polygon 2021)

https://birlinn.co.uk/product/carve-the-runes/

#Scottish #literature #Orkney #poem #poetry #GeorgeMackayBrown #backtoschool

Island School
George Mackay Brown

A boy leaves a small house
Of sea light. He leaves
The sea smells, creel
And limpet and cod.

The boy walks between steep
Stone houses, echoing
Gull cries, the all-around
Choirs of the sea,

Ship noises, shop noises, clamours
Of bellman and milkcart.
The boy comes at last
To a tower with a tall desk

And a globe and a blackboard
And a stern chalk-
smelling lady. A bell
Nods and summons.

A girl comes, cornlight
In the eyes, smelling
Of peat and cows
And the rich midden.

Running she comes, late,
Reeling in under the last
Bronze brimmings. She sits
Among twenty whispers.

ALT

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12d

I pulled all my mother’s expectations
with me, like a child’s kite, giddy with stir
of spring…

—Lynn Valentine, “St Kilda Crossing”
from DON’T. EVEN. ASK. TOO. HOT.: New Writing Scotland 42 (ASL, 2024)

Today, 29 August, marks the 96th anniversary of the final evacuation of St Kilda.

https://asls.org.uk/publications/books/newwriting/nws42/11111

#Scottish #literature #poem #poetry #StKilda

ST KILDA CROSSING
by Lynn Valentine

I pulled all my mother’s expectations
with me, like a child’s kite, giddy with stir
of spring. Because she was cancer-cracked
I turned tourist by proxy, crouched into cleits
looking for leavings of last century.

I photographed fawn smallness of Soays
felt the crash of wind-whipped stacs,
my pockets salt-filled. I leant
on those islands as my mother leant on me,
filled my lungs with their breeze
and leaping green language of sea.

I tried to hold my breath for days,
took it back to my mother, exhaled
island air on her weakened frame –
whispered broken stories of birds and rain.

ALT

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11d

The blind man did not hate me.
I saw him through the window,
through the rippling circle my own
hot breath had melted
in the spiky flowers of the frost…

—Liz Lochhead, “2. What the Creature Said”, from DREAMING FRANKENSTEIN & Collected Poems 1967–1984 (Birlinn, 2011)

https://birlinn.co.uk/product/dreaming-frankenstein-2/

#Scottish #literature #poem #poetry #Frankenstein #FrankensteinDay

Liz Lochhead
from Dreaming Frankenstein

2. What the Creature Said

The blind man did not hate me.
I saw him through the window,
through the rippling circle my own
hot breath had melted
in the spiky flowers of the frost.

I was exhausted,
imagine it. Midwinter. Mountains.
Forest. Dragging my bad leg
over iron ground, impossible passes,
pained by that fleshwound where
that villager's silver bullet
grazed me.

There he was, bent
above the hot soup, supping
his solitude from a bone spoon.
And when my single rap
at the glass spun him full face
towards me, mild as a cat,
my heart stopped but oh
he did not flinch

Then I saw his
milky eyes stared right through me,
unblinking, and he fumbled
oddly forward to meet me at the latch.
I lifted it and entered,
sure that I found a friend.

ALT

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11d

Everywhere she dies. Everywhere I go she dies.
No sunrise, no city square, no lurking beautiful mountain
but has her death in it.

—Norman MacCaig, “Memorial”
from THE POEMS OF NORMAN MacCAIG (Birlinn, 2009)

Today, 30 August, is Grief Awareness Day

https://birlinn.co.uk/product/the-poems-of-norman-maccaig/

#Scottish #literature #poem #poetry #NormanMacCaig #grief #GriefAwarenessDay

Memorial
by Norman MacCaig

Everywhere she dies. Everywhere I go she dies.
No sunrise, no city square, no lurking beautiful mountain
but has her death in it.
The silence of her dying sounds through
the carousel of language, it's a web
on which laughter stitches itself. How can my hand
clasp another's when between them
is that thick death, that intolerable distance?

She grieves for my grief. Dying, she tells me
that bird dives from the sun, that fish
leaps into it. No crocus is carved more gently
than the way her dying
shapes my mind. – But I hear, too,
the other words,
black words that make the sound
of soundlessness, that name the nowhere
she is continuously going into.

Ever since she died
she can't stop dying. She makes me
her elegy. I am a walking masterpiece,
a true fiction
of the ugliness of death.
I am her sad music.

ALT

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10d

[To Sheila Lanyon, on the Flyleaf of a Book]
W. S. Graham

Inscribed by W. S. Graham on the flyleaf of a copy of THE WHITE THRESHOLD belonging to Sheila Lanyon, widow of the painter Peter Lanyon. The poem is dated June 18, 1966 & the “second summer” referred to is the second since her husband’s death, after a gliding accident, on August 31, 1964.

Published in POETRY, January 2018

https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/poems/145185/to-sheila-lanyon-on-the-flyleaf-of-a-book

#Scottish #literature #poem #poetry #WSGraham

[To Sheila Lanyon, on the Flyleaf of a Book]
BY W. S. Graham

Sheila, we speak here on the fly
Leaf of a book which was myself
A good few graves ago.
Now I am maintained by other
Words for better or for worse
To whisper my hello.

The seasons turn. Threshold on thresh
Hold forms continually and falls
Under grief’s lonely hammer.
What did you say? I thought between
These fly leaf words I heard you speak
Out of your Second Summer.

The summer chimes and turns its blue
Dragon-flying eyes to see
We two are not afraid.
Hello, Sheila, I can hear
Your breath on the other side of the word
And see you turn your head.

ALT

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9d

Alas! We must
bear witness
well

as fate unfurls
against our
will.

We burned the blanket
thickly
on

thus from above
the beating
sun

once captured, held
can scarce get
gone.

#nepal #poem #poetry

(Excerpt from oldie, written in anticipation of everything to come.)

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8d

An lùib na droighne
anns an dris-choille
tha meas an fhoghair
toradh mo ghràidh…

—Niall O’Gallagher, “Crindreas”

https://www.scottishpoetrylibrary.org.uk/poem/crindreas/

#Scottish #literature #Gaidhlig #Gaelic #poem #poetry #autumn

Crindreas
Niall O’Gallagher

An lùib na droighne
anns an dris-choille
tha meas an fhoghair
toradh mo ghràidh

is dealt na maidne
a’ fàgail taise
a’ gleansadh air a
craiceann làn.

Tha brìgh na deirce
mìlse nas seirbhe
na gèire deilge
a’ stailceadh làimh’

ach dh’aindeoin bhioran
bu mhi a spioladh
is le mo bhilean
bhlaisinn àgh.

ALT

Bramble
Niall O’Gallagher

Translated by Deborah Moffatt

Amongst the thorns
in the thicket of brambles,
the autumn berry
is my heart’s desire,

the damp sheen
of the morning dew
gleaming bright on
its full ripe skin.

The sap of the sweet berry
is sharper than the thorn
that pierces the thin skin
of the plundering hand,

but I would pick my fill,
in spite of the pricks
that my lips might taste
the glory of the bramble.

ALT

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7d

The mile-high buildings flashed, flushed, greyed, went dark,
greyed, flushed, flashed, chameleons under flak
of cloud and sun…

—Edwin Morgan, “Clydegrad”
from CENTENARY SELECTED POEMS (Carcanet, 2020)

Today, 3 September, is Skyscraper Day

1/2

https://www.carcanet.co.uk/9781784109967/centenary-selected-poems/

#Scottish #literature #poem #poetry #20thcentury #sonnet #skyscraper #SkyscraperDay #EdwinMorgan #Glasgow #scifipoetry

Clydegrad
Edwin Morgan

It was so fine we lingered there for hours.
The long broad streets shone strongly after rain.
Sunset blinded the tremble of the crane
we watched from, dazed the heliport-towers.
The mile-high buildings flashed, flushed, greyed, went dark,
greyed, flushed, flashed, chameleons under flak
of cloud and sun. The last far thunder-sack
ripped and spilled its grumble. Ziggurat-stark,
a power-house reflected in the lead
of the old twilight river leapt alive
lit up at every window, and a boat
of students rowed past, slid from black to red
into the blaze. But where will they arrive
with all, boat, city, earth, like them, afloat?

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Book cover

EDWIN MORGAN
CENTENARY SELECTED POEMS

edited by
HAMISH WHYTE

Carcanet Classics

The cover image shows a view looking up the face of a concrete tower block, angled against a star-strewn sky – as if the skyscraper was a starship, cruising the cosmos.

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6d

Seven scythes leaned at the wall.
Beard upon golden beard
The last barley load
Swayed through the yard…

—George Mackay Brown, “Taxman”
Published in CARVE THE RUNES (Polygon, 2021)

https://birlinn.co.uk/product/carve-the-runes/

#Scottish #literature #poem #poetry #Orkney #farming #farminghistory #harvest #GeorgeMacKayBrown

Taxman
by George Mackay Brown

Seven scythes leaned at the wall.
Beard upon golden beard
The last barley load
Swayed through the yard.
The girls uncorked the ale.
Fiddle and feet moved together.
Then between stubble and heather
A horseman rode.

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5d

Daft gowk, in macaroni dress,
Are ye come here to shaw your face,
Bowden wi’ pride o’ simmer gloss,
To cast a dash at Reikie’s cross…

—“On Seeing a Butterfly in the Street”, by Robert Fergusson (1750–1774) – born #OTD, 5 Sept. In his short life he reinvigorated #poetry in Scots. A 🎂🧵

1/10

#Scottish #literature #poem #poetry #18thcentury #Edinburgh #RobertFergusson

On Seeing a Butterfly in the Street
Robert Fergusson

Daft gowk, in macaroni dress,
Are ye come here to shaw your face,
Bowden wi’ pride o’ simmer gloss,
To cast a dash at Reikie’s cross;
And glowr at mony a twa-legg’d creature,
Flees, braw by art, tho’ worms by nature?

Like country laird in city cleeding,
Ye’re come to town to lear’ good breeding;
To bring ilk darling toast and fashion
In vogue amang the flee creation,
That they, like buskit belles and beaux,
May crook their mou’ fu’ sour at those
Whase weird is still to creep, alas!
Unnotic’d ʼmang the humble grass;
While you, wi’ wings new buskit trim,
Can far frae yird and reptiles skim;
Newfangle grown wi’ new-got form,
You soar aboon your mither worm.

Kind Nature lent but for a day
Her wings to mak ye sprush and gay;
In her habuliments a while
Ye may your former sell beguile,
And ding awa’ the vexing thought
O’ hourly dwinin’ into nought,
By beengin’ to your foppish brithers,
Black corbies dress’d in peacock’s feathers;
Like thee they dander here and there,
Whan Simmer’s blinks are warm and fair,
And lo’e to snuff the healthy balm,
Whan E’enin’ spreads her wing sae calm;
But whan she girns and glow’rs sae dour
Frae Borean houff in angry show’r,
Like thee they scour frae street or field,
And hap them in a lyther bield;
For they were never made to dree
The adverse gloom o’ Fortune’s e’e,
Nor ever pried life’s pinin’ woes,
Nor pu’d the prickles wi’ the rose.

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Poor Butterfly! thy case I mourn,
To green kail-yard and fruits return:
How could you troke the mavis’ note
For “penny pies all-pipin’ hot?”
Can lintie’s music be compar’d
Wi’ gruntles frae the City Guard?
Or can our flow’rs, at ten hour’s bell,
The gowan or the spink excel?

Now shou’d our sclates wi’ hailstanes ring,
What cabbage-fauld wad screen your wing;
Say, fluttering fairy! wert thy hap
To light beneath braw Nanny’s cap,
Wad she, proud butterfly of May!
In pity let you skaithless gae?
The furies glancing frae her een
Wad rug your wings o’ siller sheen,
That, wae for thee! far, far outvy
Her Paris artist’s finest dye;
Then a’ your bonny spraings wad fall,
And you a worm be left to crawl.

To sic mishanter rins the laird
Wha quits his ha’-house and kail-yard,
Grows politician, scours to court,
Whare he’s the laughing-stock and sport
O’ Ministers, wha jeer and jibe,
And heeze his hopes wi’ thought o’ bribe,
Till in the end they flae him bare,
Leave him to poortith, and to care.
Their fleetchin’ words owre late he sees,
He trudges hame, repines, and dies.

Sic be their fa’ wha dirk their ben
In blackest business nae their ain;
And may they scad their lips fu’ leal,
That dip their spoons in ither’s kail.

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18d

Ardent on the beach at Rossnowlagh
on the last day of summer,
you ran through the shallows
throwing off shoes, and shirt and towel
like the seasons, the city’s years…

—Robin Robertson, “Donegal”
published in SAILING THE FOREST (Picador, 2014)

https://www.panmacmillan.com/authors/robin-robertson/sailing-the-forest/9781447231554

#Scottish #literature #poem #poetry #summer #Donegal #ageing