Ochone o for na gillean departed, Sundered by seas from us, buried afar.Gone are the lads who were leal and high-hearted And we are now dreeing the dolours of war.’Illean, ’illean, ’illean, Sorrow may fade but your fame shall endure,’Illean, ’illean, ’illean, While flower’s in the forest and wind’s on […]
Blue-eyed, white-souled; blameless in word and deed! —
How fortunate a thing it is to leave
This life in such a way that none may grieve,
Three thousand miles and nearly half a year
/ Away from a drab November afternoon, hysterics
/ Of friends forgotten, and also the plain…
Twenty year beddit, and nou
/ the mort-claith.
/ This suld gar ilk ane grue,
/ …
Standan here on a fogg-yirdit stane,
/ drappan the bricht flees on the broun spate,
/ I’m thinkan o ye, liggan thonder…
Remembering Tessa Ransford, 1938–2015
/
/
/ When Gavin circulated the news
/ I shed a tear or two that early autumn day.
/ What else…
An honest man here lies at rest,
/ As e’er God with His image blest:
/ The friend of man, the friend of…
For 2nd Officer James S. Montgomerie of the S.S. Carsbreck,
/ torpedoed off Gibraltar, 24th October 1941
/
/ My brother is skull and…
Gavin, it’s a beautiful winter’s day –
/ East coast, clear and bright. Let’s leave it there,
/ rinsed of all metaphors. Instead, let’s…
He has gone down into darkness at the wrecked end of the year
And is lying, gaberlunzie, in the needled nest of frost.
The arctic thrushes call for him although he cannot hear.
They taul’ me, Heraclitus, that ye had worn awa’:
/ I grat to mind hoo aft we ca’d the crack atween the…
Dear Mr. Crichton Smith,
/ how our languages mourn you.
/ Though the cottages on Kerrara Sound
/ are stoical in their grief
/ the lilt in the…
