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…
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…
