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Glasgow Street

William Montgomerie

Out of this ugliness may come
some day, so beautiful a flower
that men will wonder at that hour,
remembering smoke and flowerless slum,
and ask ,
glimpsing the agony
of the slaves who wrestle to be free
‘But why were all the poets dumb?’


William Montgomerie

from Mungo’s Tongues: Glasgow poems 1630-1990, edited by Hamish Whyte (Edinburgh: Mainstream, 1993)

Reproduced by permission of the author’s Estate.

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cities Glasgow Glasgow hope pollution short poems the future
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William Montgomerie1904 - 1994

William Montgomerie was a scholarly folklorist and bibliographer of the ballads of Scotland, whose own poetic output covered half a century of publication.
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