Classic Poem

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 herb 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 climaeteric!...

" 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 nadryu 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 . . . .

Eneuch? Then here you are. Here's the haill story.
Life's connached shapes too'er up in croons o' glory,
Perpetuatin', natheless, in their gory
Colour the endless sacrifice and pain
That to their makin's gane.

The roses like the saints in Heaven treid
Triumphant owre the agonies o' their breed,
And wag fu' mony a celestial heid
Abune the thorter-ills o' leaf and prick
In which they ken the feck maun stick.

Yank oot your orra boughs, my hert!

A mongrel growth, jumble o' disproportions,
Whirlin' in its incredible contortions,
Or wad-be client that an auld whore shuns,
Wardin' her wizened orange o' a bosom
Frae importunities sae gruesome,

Or new diversion o' the hormones
Mair fond o' procreation than the Mormons,
And fetchin' like a devastatin' storm on's
A' the uncouth dilemmas o' oor natur'
Objectified in vegetable maitter.

Yank oot your orra boughs, my hert!

And heed nae mair the foolish cries that beg
You slice nae mair to aff or pu' to leg,
You skitin' duffer that gar's a'body fleg,
— What tho' you ding the haill warld oot o' joint
Wi' a skier to cover-point!

Yank oot your orra boughs, my hert!

There was a danger — and it's weel I see't —
Had brocht ye like Mallarme to defeat: —
" Mon doute, amas de nuit ancienne s'acheve
En maint rameau subtil, qui, demeure les vrais
Bois même, prouve, helas! que bien seul je m'offrais
Pour triomphe le faute ideale des roses. "

Yank oot your orra boughs, my hert!...