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,
I wanted to write an elegy
/ without flowers. I know they’re a requirement…
Two days before your death, you wrote / There is not much to report from here.
Three thousand miles and nearly half a year
/ Away from a drab November afternoon, hysterics
/ Of friends forgotten, and also the plain…
You were being driven down to Prague
/ when a fellow in blue dungarees started shooting
/ so you stood up beside the chauffeur…
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…
Time alone separates the dull red
/ granite of these cliffs and the red
/ clay in the kirkyard yonder.
/ As I stand…
An honest man here lies at rest,
/ As e’er God with His image blest:
/ The friend of man, the friend of…
Chan fhaca mi Lannes aig Ratasbon
/ no MacGillFhinnein aig Allt Èire
/ no Gill-Ìosa aig Cùil Lodair,
/ ach chunnaic mi Sasannach san Èipheit.
/
/ Fear beag…
