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Last Lauch

Douglas Young

The Minister said it wad dee,
the cypress buss I plantit.
But the buss grew til a tree,
naething dauntit.

Hit’s growan stark and heich,
derk and straucht and sinister,
kirkyairdie-like and dreich.
But whaur’s the Minister?


Douglas Young

from Naething Dauntit: the collected poems of Douglas Young, ed. Emma Dymock (Humming Earth, 2016) 

Reproduced by permission of the Estate of Douglas Young.

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fate Scots trees
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Douglas Young1913 - 1973

Douglas Young, poet and essayist, was a colourful figure of the Scottish Renaissance, a member of the young Scottish National Party, and was imprisoned for refusing conscription in 1942. He had an international reputation as a scholar of Greek.
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