The Edinburgh Book of Twentieth-Century Scottish Poetry Edited by Maurice Lindsay and Lesley Duncan Edinburgh University Press Contents Acknowledgements xxii Introduction xxxiv Helen Adam Song for a Sea Tower 3 I Love My Love 4 Margot Robert Adamson Edinburgh 7 James Aitchison The Inheritance 8 Dipper Territory 9 Landscape with Lapwings 9 Marion Angus Alas! Poor Queen 10 The Fiddler 11 Anemones 12 Mary's Song 13 The Doors of Sleep 13 /. K. Annand Arctic Convoy 14 Fur Coats 15 Mountain Pule 16 Meg Bateman Aotromachd / Lightness . 16 Fhir luraich 's fhir alainn / O Bonnie Man, Lovely Man 17 iv The Edinburgh Book of Twentieth-Century Scottish Poetry D. M. Black The Educators 18 The Water-Lily 20 Sheena Blackball Doric's No Dodo ... 20 The Spik o' the Lan 21 Walk On 22 Captain Hamish Blair The Bloody Orkneys 23 Alan Bold Shore 24 from Edinburgh Castle 24 Deric Bolton Schiehallion 25 What Might Have Been 26 Kate Y. A. Bone Corners 26 Catlike 27 James Bridie (O. H. Mavor) The West End Perk 28 George Mackay Brown Ikey: His Will in Winter Written 28 Hamnavoe 31 The Lodging 32 The Mother 33 The Old Women 34 Hamish Brown A Salting of Snow 34 Dogs 35 Counting Sheep 35 Contents v Margaret Gillies Brown Village Woman 36 Calgary Bay 37 George Bruce A Gateway to the Sea (1) 38 Love in Age 39 Inheritance 40 Kinnaird Head 41 Departure and Departure ... 42 Soup and Sherry 42 Tom Bryan Planting Potatoes during Chernobyl 43 John Buchan from Alastair Buchan (1917) 44 Fisher Jamie 45 Tom Buchan The Everlasting Astronauts 46 Scotland the Wee 47 Elizabeth Burns Jesus Speaks to the Church at Eastertime 47 Ophelia 49 John Burnside Tundra's Edge 52 Lost 53 Out of Exile 53 Anstruther 54 Ron Butlin Advertisement for a Scottish Servant 55 The Bath 56 John M. Caie The Puddock 56 vi The Edinburgh Book of Twentieth-Century Scottish Poetry Janet Caird John Donne, You Were Wrong ... 57 Emigrants 57 Angus Calder Greeting, Not Greeting 58 Curling: Old Murrayfield Ice Rink 58 October Opera for Kate 59 Robert B. Calder Love in the Abstract 60 Sir Alec Cairncross Covenanting Country 61 Munich 61 Gerry Cambridge The Drunken Lyricist 62 Shore Crab 62 Fallen Maple Leaves 63 Foxgloves 63 Kate Clanchy Mitigation 64 We Have Some Urgent Messages 64 Men From the Boys 65 Timetable 66 W. D. Cocker The Deluge ~ 66 Stewart Conn Stolen Light 69 Todd 70 First Light 70 James Copeland The Bayonet 71 Ed 72 Contents vii Robert Crawford Sobieski-Stuarts 74 Scotch Broth 74 Helen B. Cruikshank Comfort in Puirtith 75 The Wishin' Well 76 Sae Lang Has Sorrow 76 Fate 77 Shy Geordie 77 Jenni Daiches Horse in Glasgow 78 Jewish Cemetery, Frankfurt 79 Geometry 79 John Davidson Epilogue - the Last Journey 80 Snow 82 Christine De Luca Dancing with Demons 84 Streams in the Desert 85 Telling the Time 86 Kirkpatrick Dobie Aberfan , 87 King Claudius 88 Keith Douglas Vergissmeinnicht 90 Simplify Me When I'm Dead 91 Adam Drinan from The Men on the Rocks 92 Florence: Sleeping in Fog 93 Measures 93 Carol Ann Duffy Prayer 94 War Photographer 94 viii The Edinburgh Book of Twentieth-Century Scottish Poetry Close 95 Valentine 96 Warming Her Pearls 97 Lesley Duncan Festive Tolls 98 The Visit 98 Douglas Dunn Ships 100 From the Night-Window 101 France 101 Envoi 102 Alison Fell Pushing Forty 102 Pigeons 103 Rannoch Moor 104 Gillian Ferguson Grey Kirk in the Mearns 105 Ian Hamilton Finlay Bedtime 105 Gift 106 Finlay's House (in Rousay) 106 O.H.M.S. 107 Lillias Scott Forbes Turning a Fresh Eye 108 The Half-Inch Tweeddale 108 Veronica Forrest-Thomson Sonnet 109 In This House 109 Not Pastoral Enough 110 G. S. Fraser Home Town Elegy 111 Lean Street 112 The Traveller Has Regrets 112 Contents ix Hugh Frater and Duncan Macrae The Wee Cock Sparra 113 Robin Fulton The End of an Age 114 A Note for Robert Henryson 115 Forecast for a Quiet Night 115 Robert Garioch Elegy 116 I Was Fair Beat 116 Nemo Canem Impune Lacessit 117 Flora Garry Rostov-on-Don (1942) 117 The Professor's Wife 118 Magi Gibson Just Like Eve 120 Goldilocks 120 Reading in Bed 121 Valerie Gillies * We Meet Again 122 Summer Bull 122 The Look-Alike 123 Duncan Glen Bell Barrow 124 My Faither 124 Twa Warlds 125 W. S. Graham Loch Thorn 126 Greenock at Night I Find You 127 Letter VI 128 Sir Alexander Gray Scotland 129 On a Cat, Ageing 130 The Fine Fechtin Mouse 131 The Edinburgh Book of Twentieth-Century Scottish Poetry Andrew Greig Still 132 Interlude on Mustagh Tower 133 Ruth Says 133 George Campbell Hay Still Gyte, Man? 134 The Hind of Morning 134 Homer 135 The Old Fisherman 135 Hamish Henderson The Flyting o' Life and Daith 136 The 51st Highland Division's Farewell to Sicily 137 Elegies for the Dead in Cyrenaica: 139 Prologue 139 First Elegy 139 /. F. Hendry The Constant North 141 The Ship 141 W. N. Herbert The King and Queen of Dumfriesshire 142 Why the Elgin Marbles Must Be Returned to Elgin 143 Looking Up from Aeroplanes 144 Alan Jackson Hitch-Haiku 145 Confessio 145 The Proddy Heebie Jeebies 145 The Worstest Beast 146 Violet Jacob The Water-Hen 147 Tarn i' the Kirk 148 The Neep-Fields by the Sea 148 Kathleen Jamie Arraheids 149 The Oneen of Sheba 150 Contents xi Mrs McKellar, Her Martyrdom 153 Crossing the Loch 154 Jackie Kay Old Tongue 155 Teeth 156 I. W. King IfYeHivni... 158 Norman Kreitman In Torrett, Minorca 158 Lizard 159 Glossy Mail 160 Bonfire in April 161 Frank Kuppner from An Old Guide-Book to Prague 161 R. D. Laing Sonnet 4 166 Sonnet 16 166 Helen Lamb She Said / He Said 167 Evidence 167 Tom Leonard The Good Thief 168 Feed Ma Lamz 169 Maurice Lindsay At Hans Christian Andersen's Birthplace, Odense, Denmark 169 Hurlygush 170 'Tis Sixty Years Since 171 Liz Lochhead My Rival's House 172 The Empty Song 173 Poem for My Sister 174 Noises in the Dark 174 xii The Edinburgh Book of Twentieth-Century Scottish Poetry Roddy Lumsden Yeah Yeah Yeah 175 Vanishing 176 Prayer to Be with Mercurial Women 176 George MacBeth Shorts 177 The Ward 178 Alsatian 179 Brian McCabe Seagull 179 Kite 180 Norman MacCaig No Choice 181 Toad 181 Praise of a Collie 182 Heron 183 Byre 183 Double Life 184 Hugh MacDiarmid Empty Vessel 185 The Bonnie Broukit Bairn 186 The Eemis Stane 186 OJesuParvule 186 Milk-Wort and Bog-Cotton 187 O Wha's Been Here Afore Me, Lass ? 187 Lo! A Child is Born 188 Two Memories 189 from The Glass of Pure Water 190 Ellie McDonald Widdershins 192 Uncle 193 Pittendrigh Macgillivray Mercy o' Gode 194 Contents xiii Matt McGinn Coorie Doon 196 The Big Orange Whale 196 Alastair Mackie Schoolquine 197 Pieta 198 Primary Teachers 199 Albert D. Mackie Molecatcher 200 Newsboy 200 Rayne Mackinnon After the Snow 200 Bruckner 201 Scotland 202 The Cuillin 203 Hamish MacLaren Island Rose 204 Alasdair Maclean Rams 204 Question and Answer 205 After Culloden 206 Sorley MacLean I Somhairle MacGill-Eain Calbharaigh / Calvary 208 My Een Are Nae on Calvary 209 Coin is madaidhean-allaidh / Dogs and Wolves 209 Traighean / Shores 211 Hallaig / Hallaig 213 Lionmhorachd anns na speuran / Tumultuous Plenty in the Heavens 217 Robert McLellan Sang 218 xiv The Edinburgh Book of Twentieth-Century Scottish Poetry Anne MacLeod Shakespeare No More 218 Persephone's Daughter 222 Hugh McMillan Leaving Scotland by Train 222 The X Files: Bonnybridge, October '95 223 Adam McNaughtan Oor Hamlet 224 The Jeelie Piece Song 226 Aonghas MacNeacail Oideachadh ceart / A Proper Schooling 227 Anochd is tu bhuam / Tonight You Being From Me 231 Hugh Macpherson Looking for 78's in the '40s 232 Gerald Mangan Glasgow 1956 233 Ailsa Craig 234 Kirkintilloch Revisited 235 Angus Martin Passchendaele 237 Who Among Common Men of Their Time? 238 Gordon Meade The Scrimshaw Sailor )239 The Great Spotted Woodpecker 239 In Eyemouth Harbour 240 Elma Mitchell The Crucifixion Will Not Take Place 241 The Death of Adam 244 Thoughts After Ruskin 245 Naomi Mitchison To a Fisherman with the Present of a Knife 247 The Scottish Renaissance in Glasgow: 1935 247 Contents xv The Farm Woman: 1942 248 Nettlebed Road 249 William Montgomerie Flodden 250 Epitaph 251 Edwin Morgan King Billy 251 Glasgow Green 252 Strawberries 254 The First Men on Mercury 255 Ken Morrice To a Shy Girl at a Party 257 Crossing the Alps 257 Voyager 258 Edwin Muir Scotland 1941 258 Mary Stuart 260 Scotland's Winter 260 Song 261 Merlin 262 One Foot in Eden 263 Stephen Mulrine The Coming of the Wee Malkies 264 Neil Munro Hey, Jock, Are Ye Glad Ye 'Listed? 264 The Heather 265 In Prison 266 Charles Murray Gin I Was God 267 Charon's Song 267 The Whistle 268 Donald S. Murray An Incomplete History of Rock Music in the Hebrides 269 xvi The Edinburgh Book of Twentieth-Century Scottish Poetry William Neill A Celtic History 270 Lark 271 Are You There, Mr Punch? 271 Siusaidh NicNeill Steel Yourself 272 For Eric Blair 272 Dennis O'Donnell The Young Men of Blackburn 273 The Crab 274 Even Solomon 274 Donny O'Rourke Wine and Wooing 275 A Letter From My Father 276 Janet Paisley The Intellectual 277 Feminist 278 The Turning 278 Don Paterson The Trans-Siberian Express 279 The Eyes 280 Walter Perrie Exilics: Leaving Lochboisdale, 1919 280 Ascending Strathbraan 281 Tom Pow A Favourite Stretch of Disused Railway 282 The Years 284 Richard Price Horseshoe Crab in Fragrante Delicto 284 On, Off, Over 285 Contents xvii John Purser The Organist Confesses to His Mirror 286 Love Poem 287 David Purves Crabbit Angels 287 Cleikit 288 Kathleen Raine To My Mountain 288 Maire Macrae's Song 289 Highland Graveyard 289 Tessa Ransford First Thaw 290 A Stable Relationship 291 Viewpoint 291 Alastair Reid Propinquity 292 Scotland 293 Weathering 294 The Manse 295 Robert Rendall The Horse-Mill 296 Angle of Vision 296 Alan Riach Antenor 297 Sankey Hymns 297 James Robertson Melt (Twa) 298 Royally 299 George Buchanan in Old Age 299 Robin Robertson Affair of Kites 300 Flags of Autumn from Camera Obscura 300 xviii The Edinburgh Book of Twentieth-Century Scottish Poetry David Rorie The Pawkie Duke 301 Dilys Rose Queen Bee 303 Figurehead 304 R.