Homespun

I met a man in Harris Tweed
As I walked down the Strand;
I turned and followed like a dog
The breath of hill and sea and bog
That clung about the crotal brown.
And suddenly, in London Town
I heard again the Gaelic speech,
The scrunch of keel on shingly beach;
The traffic’s never-ending roar
Came plangent from a shining shore;
I saw the little lochs where lie
The lilies, white as ivory;
And tumbling down the rocky hills
Came scores of little foaming rills.
I saw the crofter bait his line,
The children herding yellow kine,
The barefoot woman with her creel,
The washing-pot, the spinning wheel,
The mounds thrown up by patient toil
To coax the corn from barren soil.
With buoyant step I went along
Whistling a Hebridean song
That Iain Og of Taransay
Sang to me one enchanted day.
I was a man renewed indeed
Because I smelt that Harris Tweed
As I went down the Strand.