O wad this braw hie-heapit toun Sail aff like an enchanted ship, Drift owre the warld’s seas up and doun, And kiss wi’ Venice lip to lip, Or anchor into Naples’ Bay A misty island far astray Or set her rock to Athens’ wa’, Pillar to pillar, stane to stane, The cruikit spell o’ her […]
Robert Louis Stevenson,
/ the author in his jimjams,
/ wrote about the New Town,
/ its draughty parallelograms…
Sassoon, the elder, Sunday golfer; / Owen, bookish, gangly, pale – mingling / with the queue for the refectory.
On leaving
you playfully punched
my left
shoulder…
In twos and threes, they have not far to roam, / Crowds that thread eastward, gay of eyes…
Tune: Ti, ti, ti, ta (wi’ apologies tae Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony)
/
/ I
/
/ Duddingston Loch
/ Skate ower…
On day 1, explore Edinburgh Castle sitting proud: / find the modest crown of a far from quiet country, /…
Stone above storms, you rear upon the ridge:
/ we live on your back, its crag-and-tail,
/
/ spires and tenements stacked on your spine,
/ the…
The auld Assembly-rooms, whaur Scott
foregethert wi his fiers,
nou see a gey kenspeckle lot
ablow the chandeliers.
If they should ask what makes the stuff of us
/ We should call up such idle things…
Above the Crags that fade and gloom
/ Starts the bare knee of Arthur’s Seat;
/ Ridged high against the evening bloom,…
I watch the city shrug its clothes back on.
/ An appaloosa spatter gathers scent
/ that hits the brain the way it hits…
