We present this work in honor of the 110th anniversary of the poet’s death.
Andrew Lang Scots 1844 – 1912
Had cigarettes no ashes, And roses ne’er a thorn, No man would be a funker Of whin, or burn, or bunker. There were no need for mashies, The turf would ne’er be torn, Had cigarettes no ashes, And roses ne’er a thorn.
Had cigarettes no ashes, And roses ne’er a thorn, The big trout would not ever Escape into the river. No gut the salmon smashes Would leave us all forlorn, Had cigarettes no ashes, And roses ne’er a thorn.
But ‘tis an unideal Sad world in which we’re born, And things will ‘go contrairy’ With Martin and with Mary: And every day the real Comes bleakly in with morn, And cigarettes have ashes, And every rose a thorn.
Old gods and goddesses who have lived so long Through time and never found eternity, Fettered by wasting wood and hollowing hill, You should have fled our ever-dying song, The mound, the well, and the green trysting tree. They have forgotten, yet you linger still, Goddess of caverned breast and channeled brow, And cheeks slow hollowed by millennial tears, Forests of autumns fading in your eyes, Eternity marvels at your counted years And kingdoms lost in time, and wonders how There could be thoughts so bountiful and wise As yours beneath the ever-breaking bough, And vast compassion curving like the skies.
The sun’s going down behind the great shale-heap Over against the village; shadows creep Shifting from door to door, and all the bings Of Broxburn stand like tombs of Theban kings Black on the crimson, crowned by fierce blue stars.
From the fields mist is rising. Motor cars Pass swiftly through the film of gathering grey, Their drivers peering apprehensively For furtive waggons, dazzled by the bits Of sunset that still float above the pits And fall into the puddles on the road.
Beyond the hedge the ploughman has bestrode His horse, or seated edgewise lumbering rides With feet that flap against the steaming sides Of his tired beast, homeward beneath the moon, Now and then whistling snatches of a tune The harness echoes with its tinkling brass.
From time to time belated miners pass With uncouth, blackened faces, taciturn; Behind the bings the fires of sunset burn To ashes very slowly. In the north The Bear prowls softly up above the Forth In a dark gulf the wind has sucked again Out of the clouds. To-morrow we’ll have rain.
We present this work in honor of the 155th anniversary of the poet’s death.
Alexander Smith
Scots
1829 – 1867
I cannot deem why men toil so for Fame. A porter is a porter though his load Be the oceaned world, and although his road Be down the ages. What is in a name? Ah! ‘t is our spirit’s curse to strive and seek. Although its heart is rich in pearls and ores, The Sea complains upon a thousand shores; Sea-like we moan for ever. We are weak. We ever hunger for diviner stores. I cannot say I have a thirsting deep For human fame, nor is my spirit bowed To be a mummy above ground to keep For stare and handling of the vulgar crowd, Defrauded of my natural rest and sleep.
A King has sought at midnight hour The sorceress in her cell, And bids invoke the Prophet’s shade, His coming doom to tell. He bows before the spectral form, He speaks in anguish sore— “God is departed from me, And answereth me no more.”
Dark words—how pregnant with despair! How fraught with hopeless woe! Stern spake the spirit-seer—”What hope When God He is thy foe? And wherefore seek to know thy doom, For this thou knew’st before? “ ‘God is departed from thee, And answereth thee no more!’
“The word which God hath spoke by me He hath confirmed and done— He rends the kingdom from thy hand; His own anointed one, Even David, he shall fill thy throne; Thy reign, thy life is o’er— ‘God is departed from thee, And answereth thee no more!’
“Since thou obey’dst not God, nor didst His high behest fulfil, He gives thy host, thy sons, thy life, Up to the enemies’ will. Thy soul, ere midnight glooms again, Shall wing th’ eternal shore. ‘God is departed from thee, And answereth thee no more.’“
He faints, he falls, on earth he lies, That stately, peerless form, Which oft had tower’d in Israel’s van And ruled in battles’ storm. Oh kingly oak! the thunder fires Have scathed thine inmost core. “God is departed from thee, And answereth thee no more.”
Who runs may read this awful truth, In lines of lightning traced, The spoken, written Word of God, Though trampled, scorn’d, defaced By men of sin and pride, the earth Shall burn, the heavens decay, Ere Word of God, to man reveal’d, Shall fail or pass away.
We present this work in honor of the poet’s 60th birthday.
Jackie Kay Scots b. 1961
How they strut about, people in love, How tall they grow, pleased with themselves, Their hair, glossy, their skin shining. They don’t remember who they have been.
How filmic they are just for this time. How important they’ve become – secret, above The order of things, the dreary mundane. Every church bell ringing, a fresh sign. How dull the lot that are not in love. Their clothes shabby, their skin lustreless; How clueless they are, hair a mess; how they trudge Up and down the streets in the rain,
remembering one kiss in a dark alley, A touch in a changing room, if lucky, a lovely wait For the phone to ring, maybe, baby. The past with its rush of velvet, its secret hush Already miles away, dimming now, in the late day.
We present this work in honor of the International Day of the Girl.
Carol Ann Duffy Scots b. 1955
You could travel up the Blue Nile with your finger, tracing the route while Mrs Tilscher chanted the scenery. Tana. Ethiopia. Khartoum. Aswân. That for an hour, then a skittle of milk and the chalky Pyramids rubbed into dust. A window opened with a long pole. The laugh of a bell swung by a running child.
This was better than home. Enthralling books. The classroom glowed like a sweet shop. Sugar paper. Coloured shapes. Brady and Hindley faded, like the faint, uneasy smudge of a mistake. Mrs Tilscher loved you. Some mornings, you found she’d left a good gold star by your name. The scent of a pencil slowly, carefully, shaved. A xylophone’s nonsense heard from another form.
Over the Easter term, the inky tadpoles changed from commas into exclamation marks. Three frogs hopped in the playground, freed by a dunce, followed by a line of kids, jumping and croaking away from the lunch queue. A rough boy told you how you were born. You kicked him, but stared at your parents, appalled, when you got back home.
That feverish July, the air tasted of electricity. A tangible alarm made you always untidy, hot, fractious under the heavy, sexy sky. You asked her how you were born and Mrs Tilscher smiled, then turned away. Reports were handed out. You ran through the gates, impatient to be grown, as the sky split open into a thunderstorm.
We present this work in honor of International Talk Like a Pirate Day.
Robert Louis Stevenson Scots 1850 – 1894
Three of us afloat in the meadow by the swing, Three of us aboard in the basket on the lea. Winds are in the air, they are blowing in the spring, And waves are on the meadow like the waves there are at sea.
Where shall we adventure, to-day that we’re afloat, Wary of the weather and steering by a star? Shall it be to Africa, a-steering of the boat, To Providence, or Babylon, or off to Malabar?
Hi! but here’s a squadron a-rowing on the sea— Cattle on the meadow a-charging with a roar! Quick, and we’ll escape them, they’re as mad as they can be, The wicket is the harbour and the garden is the shore.
We present this work in honor of the poet’s 250th birthday.
Sir Walter Scott Scots 1771 – 1832
Breathes there the man, with soul so dead, Who never to himself hath said, This is my own, my native land! Whose heart hath ne’er within him burn’d, As home his footsteps he hath turn’d From wandering on a foreign strand! If such there breathe, go, mark him well; For him no Minstrel raptures swell; High though his titles, proud his name, Boundless his wealth as wish can claim; Despite those titles, power, and pelf, The wretch, concentred all in self, Living, shall forfeit fair renown, And, doubly dying, shall go down To the vile dust, from whence he sprung, Unwept, unhonour’d, and unsung.
Poets Corner 