August 1934 There’s a thin rain of music comes across the poppied corn, Across the poppied corn and the sun-splashed sea,Crying, ‘Who’s a-going venturing, a-venturing, a-venturing, Who’s a-going venturing with all a man can be?’O, listen, listen, listen, for it’s far, far away, The dim remembered country where the ghostly pipers blow,Across […]
O bonnie lad wi’ the kilt sae braw
An’ tossel’t sporran swingin’ –
Wi’ dirk at the hip, an’ ribbons rid;
Ye set my hert a-singin’.
A haze of dust floats up from marching feet
/ Along our homely roads;
/ Great waggons clatter down the…
We were eating chip potatoes underneath the April stars
/ That glittered coldly and aloof from earth and earthly wars;
/ We were three…
Here’s freedom to them that wad read,
Here’s freedom to them that wad write!
There’s nane ever fear’d that the truth should be heard,
But they whom the truth would indite.
On the Forfar ‘bus in a morn of spring,
/ A nipping wind and the frost’s sharp sting;
/ And I can’t tell why,…
Now over the map that took ten million years
/ Of rain and sun to crust like boiler-slag,
/ The lines of fighting men…
Me, an’ Jean, an’ the bairn;
/ The wee lad spierin’ an’ starin’;
/ Daunderin’ quiet an’ douce-like doun
/ The Menin road into Ypres toun.
/ ‘Did…
Ay, gie’s ma rum. I’m needin’t sair, by God!
/ We’ve juist been bringin’ Wullie doun the line –…
In the cold of the morning, / In the burning of the day, / The thin lines stumbled forward, /…
No great triumphal march
/ For lads like you;
/ No pasteboard victory arch,
/ No grand review.
/ In…
From out the reeling night the old chateau
/ Rears up to meet a straggling file of men,
/ Muddy and sore; who filled…
