SQA Higher texts Archives - Scottish Poetry Library

Èistibh - by Anna Frater

{ Poem }

Feuch an tigeadh guth
tron t-sàmhchair.

Kinloch Ainort - by Somhairle MacGillEain
Sorley MacLean

{ Poem }

A company of mountains, an upthrust of mountains,
a great garth of growing mountains,
a concourse of summits, of knolls, of hills
coming on with a fearsome roaring.

Girl of the red-gold hair - by Somhairle MacGillEain
Sorley MacLean

{ Poem }

Girl of the red-gold hair, far from you, o love, my aim; girl of the red-gold hair, far from you my sorrow. Tonight on the Sound of Raasay my hand is on the helm, listlessly the wind shakes the sail, my heart is dumb, aching for your music, today and tomorrow indifferent to my expectation. […]

The Way My Mother Speaks - by Carol Ann Duffy

{ Poem }

I say her phrases to myself
in my head
or under the shallows of my breath,
restful shapes moving.
The day and ever. The day and ever.

In Mrs Tilscher’s Class - by Carol Ann Duffy

{ Poem }

You could travel up the Blue Nile
with your finger, tracing the route
while Mrs Tilscher chanted the scenery.
Tana. Ethiopia. Khartoum. Aswân.

The Circle - by Don Paterson

{ Poem }

My boy is painting outer space,
and steadies his brush-tip to trace
the comets, planets, moon and sun
and all the circuitry they run…

Rain - by Don Paterson

{ Poem }

I love all films that start with rain:
rain, braiding a windowpane
or darkening a hung-out dress
or streaming down her upturned face…

Nil Nil - by Don Paterson

{ Poem }

Just as any truly accurate representation of a particular geography can only exist on a scale of 1:1 (imagine the vast, rustling map of Burgundy, say, settling over it like a freshly-starched sheet!) so it is with all our abandoned histories, those ignoble lines of succession that end in neither triumph nor disaster, but merely […]

The Ferryman’s Arms - by Don Paterson

{ Poem }

About to sit down with my half-pint of Guinness
I was magnetized by a remote phosphorescence
and drawn, like a moth, to the darkened back room
where a pool-table hummed to itself in the corner.

11:00: Baldovan - by Don Paterson

{ Poem }

Base Camp. Horizontal sleet. Two small boys
have raised the steel flag of the 20 terminus:

me and Ross Mudie are going up the Hilltown
for the first time ever on our own.

Waking with Russell - by Don Paterson

{ Poem }

Whatever the difference is, it all began
the day we woke up face-to-face like lovers
and his four-day-old smile dawned on him again…

A Poet’s Welcome to his Love-Begotten Daughter - by Robert Burns

{ Poem }

Thou’s welcome, Wean! Mishanter fa’ me,
If thoughts o’ thee, or yet thy Mamie.

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