For Alasdair
Standan here on a fogg-yirdit stane,
drappan the bricht flees on the broun spate,
I’m thinkan o ye, liggan thonder your lane,
i the het Libyan sand, cauld and quate.
The spate rins drumlie and broun,
whummlan aathing doun.
The fowk about Inverness and Auld Aberdeen
aye likeit ye weel, for a wyce and a bonny man.
Ye were gleg at the Greekan o’t, and unco keen
at gowf and the lave. Nou deid i the Libyan sand.
The spate rins drumlie and broun,
whummlan aathing doun.
Hauldan the Germans awa frae the Suez Canal,
ye dee’d. Suld this be Scotland’s pride, or shame?
Siccar it is, your gallant kindly saul
maun lea thon land and tak the laigh road hame.
The spate rins drumlie and broun,
whummlan aathing doun.
About this poem
This poem was composed while Young was fishing on the banks of the Calder at Lochwinnoch in 1941, in memory of a Highland student at Aberdeen, killed during the German advance into Libya.
