Gairmscoile

Aulder than mammoth or than mastodon Deep i’ the herts o’ a’ men lurk scaut-heid Skrymmorie monsters few daur look upon. Brides sometimes catch their wild een, scansin’ reid, Beekin’ abune the herts they thocht to lo’e And horror-stricken ken that i’ themselves A like beast stan’s, and lookin’ love thro’ and thro’ Meets the reid een wi’ een like seevun hells. ... Nearer the twa beasts draw, and, couplin’, brak The bubbles o’ twa sauls and the haill warld gangs black. Yet wha has heard the beasts’ wild matin’-call To ither music syne can gi’e nae ear. The nameless lo’enotes haud him in a thrall. Forgot are guid and ill, and joy and fear. ... My bluid sail thraw a dark hood owre my een And I sail venture deep into the hills Whaur, scaddows on the skyline, can be seen —Twinin’ the sun’s brent broo wi’ plaited horns As gin they crooned it wi’ a croon o’ thorns— The beasts in wha’s wild cries a’ Scotland’s destiny thrills. The lo’es o’ single herts are strays; but there The herds that draw the generations are, And whasae hears them roarin’, evermair Is yin wi’ a’ that gangs to mak’ or mar The spirit o’ the race, and leads it still Whither it can be led, ’yont a’ desire and will. I Wergeland, I mind o’ thee—for thy bluid tae Kent the rouch dirl o’ an auld Scots strain, —A dour dark burn that has its ain wild say Thro’ a’ the thrang bricht babble o’ Earth’s flood. Behold, thwart my ramballiach life again, What thrawn and roothewn dreams, royat and rude, Reek forth—a foray dowless herts condemn— While chance wi’ rungs o’ sang or silence renshels them. (A foray frae the past—and future tae Sin Time’s a blindness we’ll thraw aff some day!) ... On the rumgunshoch sides o’ hills forgotten Life hears beasts rowtin’ that it deemed extinct, And, sudden, on the hapless cities linked In canny civilisation’s canty dance Poor herds o’ heich-skeich monsters, misbegotten, ... Streets clear afore the scarmoch advance: Frae every winnock skimmerin’ een keek oot To see what sic camsteerie cast-offs are aboot. Cast-offs?—But wha mak’s life a means to ony end? This sterves and that stuff’s fu’, scraps this and succours that? The best survive there’s nane but fules contend. Na! Ilka daith is but a santit need. ... Lo! what bricht flames o’ beauty are lit at The unco’ een o’ lives that Life thocht deid Till winnock efter winnock kindles wi’ a sense O’ gain and glee—as gin a mair intense Starn nor the sun had risen in wha’s licht Mankind and beasts anew, wi’ gusto, see their plicht. Mony’s the auld hauf-human cry I ken Fa’s like a revelation on the herts o’ men As tho’ the graves were split and the first man Grippit the latest wi’ a freendly han’ ... And there’s forgotten shibboleths o’ the Scots Ha’e keys to senses lockit to us yet —Coorse words that shamble thro’ oor minds like stots, Syne turn on’s muckle een wi’ doonsin’ emerauds lit. I hear nae ‘hee-haw’ but I mind the day A’e donkey strunted doon a palm-strewn way As Chesterton has sung; nae wee click-clack O’ hoofs but to my hert at aince comes back Jammes’ Prayer to Gang to Heaven wi’ the Asses; And shambles-ward nae cattle-beast e’er passes But I mind hoo the saft een o’ the kine Lichted Christ’s craidle wi’ their canny shine. Hee-Haw! Click-Clack! And Cock-a-doodle-doo! —Wull Gabriel in Esperanto cry Or a’ the warld’s undeemis jargons try? It’s soon’, no’ sense, that faddoms the herts o’ men, And by my sangs the rouch auld Scots I ken E’en herts that ha’e nae Scots’ll dirl richt thro’ As nocht else could—for here’s a language rings Wi’ datchie sesames, and names for nameless things.