---------------
Faces like haggis glare across the bar
And loud, repulsive voices order beer,
You keep it very quiet who you are
And wish to God you were not really here.
The vicious arguments go round and round
Beneath a clutter of continual noise,
In all this place there is no moral sound
Just people fighting and the shouts of boys.
Sam Johnson knew his mind on all of this,
This paucity where no one thinks a thought,Where all the hits are just a sodden miss
And intellectual life a perfect nought.
The highroad south and vehicles up for hire
Were the only things in Scotland to admire.
------------
Beneath the castle on a Sunday walk
In dour demureness and a wrathful joy,
The girls in white are not allowed to talk
And no one notices the ragged boy.
The elders call on God to claim their sins,
To strike the people dumb as is a stone,
And someone in the congregation wins
The chance to be a scapegoat and atone.
Elsewhere in courts and alleys young men wipe
The painful sting of living from their lips,A stray cat hunts for mice around a pipe
And women smooth their hands across their hips.
A double-headed coin is spun once more
Between the tenement and chapel door.
------------
The wrath of God was evidenced in stone,
The black volcanic stone which gathered soot,The houses and the kirks might make their moan
But took their proper place beneath His foot.
Between the tenements the roads made way
Like faults in rock or chasms in the wild,
Each morning from the mud arose the day
To grizzle like a lost and dirty child.
Small wonder that the citizens went mad
Who had to live among these surly streets,
Who struggled but could not possess the glad
Nor slip the ministrations of the cheats.
A voice spoke grimly what they knew was true:
“You had no choice, and it was made for you.”
Up there beyond the edge of town
The northern hills are picked in light,
They silence glibness with a frown
And still know how to give a fright.
Their salutary shock is such
The townsman knows not what to say,
And does not really use them much
Beyond the odd, relaxing day.
The real persistence of these hills,
Autochthonous and very grim,
Reminds him that the powers that be
Are drawing up their final bills
And that when these are sent to him
He will not like what he will see.
------------
The heart of Midlothian is a cold heart.
The grain is slow to rise and the bailiff’s hand
Is over all. Each citizen is assigned a part,
And human kindness is thrown away like sand.
The heart of Midlothian is a cold heart.
The city resounds with the slamming of doors and keys
Turned in locks. Each citizen is assigned a part,
Denunciations fly in the air like geese.
On Princes Street the goods cry in the shops
And people shoulder themselves from place to place.
The tenements like prisons are a mess of slops,
The Kirk shakes its finger in every face
With a warning word. Each citizen is assigned a part.
The heart of Midlothian is a cold heart.
------------
The Scottish Poets
A forceful hand, a pint of beer, an oath,
Contempt for shuffling Calvinists outside,A furious dislike of every oaf,
A loving litany of those they bide.
But Europe and the complicated sky
Are puzzles which they do not wish to learn,
A tot of whisky and a weeping eye
Are all their interest. And what men earn.
The saints and minstrels braved the wooded tracks
And sought the torch-lit courts with book and song,
At meat they outperformed the local hacks,
And taught the heathen what was good or wrong.
This current crew will while away your stay
But send you none the wiser all away.
------------
The Athens of the North, the town of Hume,
Is sunk to absence and a fretful stir,
An old man scribbles theorems in his room
But what was once exact is now a blur.
The sharp incurious noises of defeat
Wander like ghosts behind a rational mask,
The wind is howling on grim Arthur’s Seat
But what it says is more than you dare ask.
If you have had your thought and think to give
A flash of insight to the people here,
Do not forget that those who dumbly live
Will not accept what’s new nor raise a cheer;
You will spend your life an exile till you find
A way to curb your strong, enquiring mind.
------------
Mist in the Firth and mist is in my heart,
The mournful shore-notes tell of death at sea,
It is not long, my love, and we must part.
I thought I was a god when you and I
Up Niddry Street went coursing for the sun,But now I know the depths beneath the cry.
Nothing is ever easy, nothing free,
And bleak the acts which in our hearts are done.What was the meaning of your sweetest pose,
And mist like memory upon the rose?
------------
His house was in the yew and beech belts of the South
Where dawn was like a gathering of many smiles,The land was rich and moist and open like a mouth,
And churches, lanes and villages were spread for miles.
But here he found basaltic earth beneath the grass
Which gave to everything a grinning gypsy look,He learnt to step aside at night that drunks might pass
And that divines were pedants of the holy Book.
But most of all he found that things were much the same
As in the lamb-chop-eating counties of his home – That many were lethargic at the holy Name,
That few were faithful to the echo in the dome.
On North Bridge and in Chambers Street eternal life
Was not more pressing than a cuckold neighbour’s wife.
------------
Sir Walter Scott
He wrote, although he was a gentleman,
That Scottish heads long empty since the war
Might fling a question at the fitful sun
And come to be excited by their lore.
Majestic ladies queued to offer praise
And lords to say they’d burnt a candle late,
The critics puffed him in their usual ways,
His publisher could not believe his fate.
And so, at Abbotsford and quite alone,
The public frenzy now a distant moan,
He thundered at a tale of blood and swords
And made himself a martyr to his words.
His ruin, shame and unromantic death
Became more certain with each passing breath.
------------
John Knox
Through months in galleys and atrocious heat,
His spirit buttressed by the balm of song,
He argued with himself and kept the beat
But never wondered if he might be wrong.
When he returned the land would know his tongue
And every gilt-edged idol feel his rage,
The faithful must be shepherded among
The stinking formulations of the age.
But God would give him strength to do what must
Be done, to tell the damned that they were judged,
To terrify like whirlwinds in the dust
And shift the wicked who would not be budged.
The fire would help if need be but he prayed
That easy, quick conclusions might be made.
------------
Holyrood Palace
The darkest harrowings are done by man,
The floorboards sigh and windows go insane;A Christian gentleman confects a plan
And everything is as it was again.
A monarch may be young and none too wise
And muddle principles and things of state,But who foresaw the terror in her eyes
Or understood the fury of their hate?
And so it was as evening torches flared
And anarchy descended with the night,A vain man in his own death was ensnared
Before the Queen could scream or call for light.
Statecraft conducted with a sharpened blade
Makes louts of wise men and the best afraid.
------------
At Prestonpans we saw the dead men laugh,
The pre-dawn light was muddy in their hair;They shook the Firth until it broke in half –
I do not know if they were really there.
At Berwick in the empty market place
We stopped for breakfast in a driving rain,
Behind the tower a leper scratched his face –
I do not want to think of this again.
At Lindisfarne the Holy Isle was blushed
By ancient sunlight sweeping in from sea;On motorways we saw the creatures crushed
By travellers careering home for tea.
The world goes by with scarcely a surcease,
I shall sit beneath the Rock and hold my peace.
====================
© September 1980