Part 4

What earthquake chitters oot In the Thistle’s oorie shape, What gleids o’ central fire In its reid heids escape, And whatna coonter forces In growth and ingrowth graip In an eternal clinch In this ootcuissen form That winna be outcast, But triumphs at the last (Owre a’ abies itsel’ As fer as we can tell, Sin’ frae the Eden o’ the world Ilka man in turn is hurled, And ilka gairden rins to waste That was ever to his taste?)

_O keep the Thistle ’yont the wa’ Owre which your skeletons you’ll thraw._

I, in the Thistle’s land, As you[13] in Russia where Struggle in giant form Proceeds for evermair, In my sma’ measure ’bood Address a similar task, And for a share o’ your Appallin’ genius ask.

Wha built in revelations What maist men in reserves (And only men confound!) A better gift deserves Frae ane wha like hissel (As ant-heap unto mountain) Needs bigs his life upon The everloupin’ fountain That frae the Dark ascends Whaur Life begins, Thocht ends —A better gift deserves Than thae wheen yatterin’ nerves!

For mine’s the clearest insicht O’ man’s facility For constant self-deception, And hoo his mind can be But as a floatin’ iceberg That hides aneth the sea Its bulk: and hoo frae depths O’ an unfaddomed flood Tensions o’ nerves arise And humours o’ the blood —Keethin’s nane can trace To their original place.

_Hoo mony men to mak’ a man It tak’s he kens wha kens Life’s plan._

But there are flegsome deeps Whaur the soul o’ Scotland sleeps That I to bottom need To wauk Guid kens what deid, Play at stertle-a-stobie, Wi’ nation’s dust for hobby, Or wi’ God’s sel’ commerce For the makin’ o’ a verse.

_“Melville, sea-compelling man, Before whose wand Leviathan Rose hoary-white upon the Deep,”[14] What thou hast sown I fain ’ud reap O’ knowledge ’yont the human mind In keepin’ wi’ oor Scottish kind, And, thanks to thee, may aiblins reach To what this Russian has to teach, Closer than ony ither Scot, Closer to me than my ain thocht, Closer than my ain braith to me, As close as to the Deity Approachable in whom appears This Christ o’ the neist thoosand years._

As frae your baggit wife You turned whenever able, And often when you werena, Unto the gamin’ table, And opened wide to ruin Your benmaist hert, aye brewin’ A horror o’ whatever Seemed likely to deliver You frae the senseless strife In which alane is life, —As Burns in Edinburgh Breenged arse-owre-heid thoro’ A’ _it_ could be the spur o’ To pleuch his sauted furrow, And turned frae a’ men honour To what could only scunner Wha thinks that common-sense Can e’er be but a fence To keep a soul worth ha’en Frae what it s’ud be daein’ —Sae I in turn maun gie My soul to misery, Daidle disease Upon my knees, And welcome madness Wi’ exceedin’ gladness —Aye, open wide my hert To a’ the thistle’s smert.

And a’ the hopes o’ men Sall be like wiles then To gar my soul betray Its only richtfu’ way, Or as a couthie wife That seeks nae mair frae life Than domesticity E’en wi’ the likes o’ me— As gin I could be carin’ For her or for her bairn When on my road I’m farin’ —O I can spend a nicht In ony man’s Delicht Or wi’ ony wumman born —But aye be aff the morn!

In a’ the inklin’s cryptic, Then, o’ an epileptic, I ha’e been stood in you And droukit in their grue Till I can see richt through Ilk weakness o’ my frame And ilka dernin’ shame, And can employ the same To jouk the curse o’ fame, Lowsed frae the dominion O’ popular opinion, And risen at last abune The thistle like a mune That looks serenely doon On what queer things there are In an inferior star That couldna be, or see, Themsel’s, except in me.

_Wi’ burnt-oot hert and poxy face I sall illumine a’ the place, And there is ne’er a fount o’ grace That isna in a similar case._

Let a’ the thistle’s growth Be as a process, then, My spirit’s gane richt through, And needna threid again, Tho’ in it sall be haud’n For aye the feck o’ men Wha’s queer contortions there As memories I ken, As memories o’ my ain O’ mony an ancient pain. But sin’ wha’ll e’er wun free Maun tak’ like coorse to me, A fillip I wad gi’e Their eccentricity, And leave the lave to dree Their weirdless destiny.

It’s no’ withoot regret That I maun follow yet The road that led me past Humanity sae fast, Yet scarce can gi’e a fate That is at last mair fit To them wha tak’ that gait Than theirs wha winna ha’e’t, Seein’ that nae man can get By ony airt or wile, A destiny quite worth while As fer as he can tell —Or even you yoursel’!

And O! I canna thole Aye yabblin’ o’ my soul, And fain I wad be free O’ my eternal me, Nor fare mysel’ alane —Withoot that tae be gane, And this, I ha’e nae doot, This road’ll bring aboot.

The munelicht that owre clear defines The thistle’s shrill cantankerous lines E’en noo whiles insubstantialises Its grisly form and ’stead devises A maze o’ licht, a siller-frame, As ’twere God’s dream frae which it came, Ne’er into bein’ coorsened yet, The essence lowin’ pure in it, As tho’ the fire owrecam’ the clay, And left its wraith in endless day.

These are the moments when a’ sense Like mist is vanished and intense, Magic emerges frae the dense Body o’ bein’ and beeks immense As, like a ghinn oot o’ a bottle, Daith rises frae’s when oor lives crottle.

These are the moments when my sang Clears its white feet frae oot amang My broken thocht, and moves as free As souls frae bodies when they dee. There’s naething left o’ me ava’ Save a’ I’d hoped micht whiles befa’.

Sic sang to men is little worth. It has nae message for the earth. Men see their warld turned tapsalteerie, Drookit in a licht owre eerie, Or sent birlin’ like a peerie— Syne it turns a’ they’ve kent till then To shapes they can nae langer ken.

Men canna look on nakit licht. It flings them back wi’ darkened sicht, And een that canna look at it, Maun draw earth closer roond them yet Or, their sicht tint, find nocht instead That answers to their waefu’ need.

And yet this essence frae the clay In dooble form aye braks away, For, in addition to the licht, There is an e’er-increasin’ nicht, A nicht that is the bigger, and Gangs roond licht like an airn band That noo and then mair tichtly grips, And snuffs it in a black eclipse, But rings it maistly as a brough The mune, till it’s juist bricht enough— O wull I never lowse a licht I canna dowse again in spite, Or dull to haud within my sicht?

The thistle canna vanish quite. Inside a’ licht its shape maun glint, A spirit wi’ a skeleton in’t

The world, the flesh, ’ll bide in us As in the fire the unburnt buss, Or as frae sire to son we gang And coontless corpses in us thrang.

And e’en the glory that descends I kenna whence on _me_ depends, And shapes itsel’ to what is left Whaur I o’ me ha’e me bereft, And still the form is mine, altho’ A force to which I ne’er could grow Is movin’ in’t as ’twere a sea That lang syne drooned the last o’ me —That drooned afore the warld began A’ that could ever come frae Man.

And as at sicna times am I, I wad ha’e Scotland to my eye Until I saw a timeless flame Tak’ Auchtermuchty for a name, And kent that Ecclefechan stood As pairt o’ an eternal mood.

Ahint the glory comes the nicht As Maori to London’s ruins, And I’m amused to see the plicht O’ Licht as’t in the black tide droons, Yet even in the brain o’ Chaos For Scotland I wad hain a place, And let Tighnabruaich still Be pairt and paircel o’ its will, And Culloden, black as Hell, A knowledge it has o’ itsel’.

Thou, Dostoevski, understood, Wha had your ain land in your bluid, And into it as in a mould The passion o’ your bein’ rolled, Inherited in turn frae Heaven Or sources fer abune it even.

_Sae God retracts in endless stage Through angel, devil, age on age, Until at last his infinite natur’ Walks on earth a human cratur’ (Or less than human as to my een The people are in Aiberdeen); Sae man returns in endless growth Till God in him again has scouth._

For sic a loup towards wisdom’s croon Hoo fer a man maun base him doon, Hoo plunge aboot in Chaos ere He finds his needfu’ fittin’ there, The matrix oot o’ which sublime Serenity sall soar in time!

Ha’e I the cruelty I need, Contempt and syne contempt o’ that, And still contempt in endless meed That I may never yet be caught In ony satisfaction, or Bird-lime that winna let me soar?

Is Scotland big enough to be A symbol o’ that force in me, In wha’s divine inebriety A sicht abune contempt I’ll see?

For a’ that’s Scottish is in me, As a’ things Russian were in thee, And I in turn ’ud be an action To pit in a concrete abstraction My country’s contrair qualities, And mak’ a unity o’ these Till my love owre its history dwells, As owretone to a peal o’ bells.

And in this heicher stratosphere As bairn at giant at thee I peer....

_O Jean, in whom my spirit sees, Clearer than through whisky or disease, Its dernin’ nature, wad the searchin’ licht Oor union raises poor’d owre me the nicht._

_I’m faced wi’ aspects o’ mysel’ At last wha’s portent nocht can tell, Save that sheer licht o’ life that when we’re joint Loups through me like a fire a’ else t’ aroint._

_Clear my lourd flesh, and let me move In the peculiar licht o’ love, As aiblins in Eternity men may When their swack souls nae mair are clogged wi’ clay._

_Be thou the licht in which I stand Entire, in thistle-shape, as planned, And no’ hauf-hidden and hauf-seen as here In munelicht, whisky, and in fleshly fear,_

_In fear to look owre closely at The grisly form in which I’m caught, In sic a reelin’ and imperfect licht Sprung frae incongruous elements the nicht!_

_But wer’t by thou they were shone on, Then wad I ha’e nae dreid to con The ugsome problems shapin’ in my soul, Or gin I hed—certes, nae fear you’d thole!_

_Be in this fibre like an eye, And ilka turn and twist descry, Hoo here a leaf, a spine, a rose—or as The purpose o’ the poo’er that brings ’t to pass._

_Syne liberate me frae this tree, As wha had there imprisoned me, The end achieved—or show me at the least Mair meanin’ in’t, and hope o’ bein’ released._

I tae ha’e heard Eternity drip water (Aye water, water!), drap by drap On the a’e nerve, like lichtnin’, I’ve become, And heard God passin’ wi’ a bobby’s feet Ootby in the lang coffin o’ the street —Seen stang by chitterin’ knottit stang loup oot Uncrushed by th’ echoes o’ the thunderin’ boot, Till a’ the dizzy lint-white lines o’ torture made A monstrous thistle in the space aboot me, A symbol o’ the puzzle o’ man’s soul —And in my agony been pridefu’ I could still Tine nae least quiver or twist, watch ilka point Like a white-het bodkin ripe my inmaist hert, And aye wi’ clearer pain that brocht nae anodyne, But rose for ever to a fer crescendo Like eagles that ootsoar wi’ skinklan’ wings The thieveless sun they blin’ —And pridefu’ still That ’yont the sherp wings o’ the eagles fleein’ Aboot the dowless pole o’ Space, Like leafs aboot a thistle-shank, my bluid Could still thraw roses up —And up!

O rootless thistle through the warld that’s pairt o’ you, Gin you’d withstand the agonies still to come, You maun send roots doon to the deeps unkent, Fer deeper than it’s possible for ocht to gang, Savin’ the human soul, Deeper than God himsel’ has knowledge o’, Whaur lichtnin’s canna probe that cleave the warld, Whaur only in the entire dark there’s founts o’ strength Eternity’s poisoned draps can never file, And muckle roots thicken, deef to bobbies’ feet.

A mony-brainchin’ candelabra fills The lift and’s lowin’ wi’ the stars; The Octopus Creation is is wallopin’ In coontless faddoms o’ a nameless sea. I am the candelabra, and burn My endless candles to an Unkent God. I am the mind and meanin’ o’ the octopus That thraws its empty airms through a’ th’ Inane.

And a’ the bizzin’ suns ha’e bigged Their kaims upon the surface o’ the sea. My lips may feast for ever, but my guts Ken naething o’ the Food o’ Gods.

“Let there be Licht,” said God, and there was A little: but He lacked the poo’er To licht up mair than pairt o’ space at aince, And there is lots o’ darkness that’s the same As gin He’d never spoken —Mair darkness than there’s licht, And dwarfin’t to a candle-flame, A spalin’ candle that’ll sune gang oot. —Darkness comes closer to us than the licht, And is oor natural element. We peer oot frae’t Like cat’s een bleezin’ in a goustrous nicht (Whaur there is nocht to find but stars That look like ither cats’ een), Like cat’s een, and there is nocht to find Savin’ we turn them in upon oorsels; Cats canna. Darkness is wi’ us a’ the time, and Licht But veesits pairt o’ us, the wee-est pairt Frae time to time on a short day atween twa nichts. Nae licht is thrawn on _them_ by ony licht. Licht thraws nae licht upon itsel’; But in the darkness them wha’s een Nae fleetin’ lichts ha’e dazzled and deceived Find qualities o’ licht, keener than ony licht, Keen and abidin’; That show the nicht unto itsel’, And syne the licht, That queer extension o’ the dark, That seems a separate and a different thing, And, seemin’ sae, has lang confused the dark, And set it at cross-purposes wi’ itsel’.

O little Life In which Daith guises and deceives itsel’, Joy that mak’s Grief a Janus, Hope that is Despair’s fause-face, And Guid and Ill that are the same, Save as the chance licht fa’s!

And yet the licht is there, Whether frae within or frae withoot. The conscious Dark can use it, dazzled nor deceived. The licht is there, and th’ instinct for it, Pairt o’ the Dark and o’ the need to guise, To deceive and be deceived, But let us then be undeceived When we deceive, When we deceive oorsels. Let us enjoy deceit, this instinct in us. Licht cheenges naething, And gin there is a God wha made the licht We are adapted to receive, _He_ cheenged naething, And hesna kythed Hissel! Save in this licht that fa’s whaur the Auld Nicht was, Showin’ naething that the Darkness didna hide, And gin it shows a pairt o’ that Confoondin’ mair than it confides Ev’n in that.

The epileptic thistle twitches (A trick o’ wund or mune or een—or whisky). A brain laid bare, A nervous system, The skeleton wi’ which men labour And bring to life in Daith —I, risen frae the deid, ha’e seen My deid man’s eunuch offspring. —The licht frae bare banes whitening evermair, Frae twitchin’ nerves thrawn aff, Frae nakit thocht, Works in the Darkness like a fell disease, A hungry acid and a cancer, Disease o’ Daith-in-Life and Life-in-Daith.

O for a root in some untroubled soil, Some cauld soil ’yont this fevered warld, That ’ud draw darkness frae a virgin source, And send it slow and easefu’ through my veins, Release the tension o’ my grisly leafs, Withdraw my endless spikes, Move coonter to the force in me that hauds Me raxed and rigid and ridiculous —And let my roses drap Like punctured ba’s that at a Fair Fa’ frae the loupin’ jet! —Water again!...

Omsk and the Calton turn again to dust, The suns and stars fizz out with little fuss, The bobby booms away and seems to bust, And leaves the world to darkness and to us.

The circles of our hungry thought Swing savagely from pole to pole. Death and the Raven drift above The graves of Sweeney’s body and soul.

My name is Norval. On the Grampian Hills It is forgotten, and deserves to be. So are the Grampian Hills and all the people Who ever heard of either them or me.

What’s in a name? From pole to pole Our interlinked mentality spins. I know that you are Deosil, and suppose That therefore I am Widdershins.

Do you reverse? Shall us? Then let’s. Cyclone and Anti?—how absurd! She should know better at her age. Auntie’s an ass, upon my word.

This is the sort of thing they teach The Scottish children in the school. Poetry, patriotism, manners— No wonder I am such a fool....

Hoo can I graipple wi’ the thistle syne, Be intricate as it and up to a’ its moves? A’ airts its sheenin’ points are loupin’ ’yont me, Quhile still the firmament it proves.

And syne it’s like a wab in which the warld Squats like a spider, quhile the mune and me Are taigled in an endless corner o’t Tyauvin’ fecklessly....

_The wan leafs shak’ atour us like the snaw. Here is the cavaburd in which Earth’s tint. There’s naebody but Oblivion and us, Puir gangrel buddies, waunderin’ hameless in’t._

_The stars are larochs o’ auld cottages, And a’ Time’s glen is fu’ o’ blinnin’ stew. Nae freen’ly lozen skimmers: and the wund Rises and separates even me and you._[15]

_I ken nae Russian and you ken nae Scots. We canna tell oor voices frae the wund. The snaw is seekin’ everywhere: oor herts At last like roofless ingles it has f’und,_

_And gethers there in drift on endless drift, Oor broken herts that it can never fill; And still—its leafs like snaw, its growth like wund.— The thistle rises and forever will!..._

The thistle rises and forever will, Getherin’ the generations under’t. This is the monument o’ a’ they were, And a’ they hoped and wondered.

The barren tree, dry leafs, and cracklin’ thorns, This is the mind o’ a’ humanity, —The empty intellect that left to grow ’ll let nocht ither be.

Lo! It has choked the sunlicht’s gowden grain, And strangled syne the white hairst o’ the mune. Thocht that mak’s a’ the food o’ nocht but Thocht Is reishlin’ grey abune....

_O fitly frae oor cancerous soil May this heraldic horror rise! The Presbyterian thistle flourishes, And its ain roses crucifies...._

No’ Edinburgh Castle or the fields O’ Bannockburn or Flodden Are dernin’ wi’ the miskent soul Scotland sae lang has hod’n.

It hands nae pew in ony kirk, The soul Christ cam’ to save; Nae R.S.A.’s ha’e pentit it, F.S.A.’s fund its grave.

Is it alive or deid? I show My hert—wha will can see. The secret clyre in Scotland’s life Has brust and reams through me,

A whummlin’ sea in which is heard The clunk o’ nameless banes; A grisly thistle dirlin’ shrill Abune the broken stanes.

Westminster Abbey nor the Fleet, Nor England’s Constitution, but In a’ the michty city there, You mind a’e fleggit slut,

As Tolstoi o’ Lucerne alane Minded a’e beggar minstrel seen! The woundit side draws a’ the warld. Barbarians ha’e lizards’ een.

Glesca’s a gless whaur Magdalene’s Discovered in a million crimes. Christ comes again—wheesht, whatna bairn In backlands cries betimes?

Hard faces prate o’ their success, And pickle-makers awn the hills. There is nae life in a’ the land But this infernal Thistle kills....

Nae mair I see As aince I saw Mysel’ in the thistle Harth and haw!

Nel suo profondo vidi che s’interna Legato con amore in un volume (Or else by Hate, fu’ aft the better Love) Ciò che per l’universo si squaderna.

Sustanzia ed accidenti, e lor costume. Quasi conflati insieme fer tal modo. (The michty thistle in wha’s boonds I rove) Ché ciò ch’io dico è un semplice lume.[16]

And kent and was creation In a’ its coontless forms, Or glitterin’ in raw sunlicht, Or dark wi’ hurrying storms.

But what’s the voice That sings in me noo? —A’e hauf o’ me tellin’ The tither it’s fou!

It’s the voice o’ the Sooth That’s held owre lang My Viking North Wi’ its siren sang....

_Fier comme un Ecossais._

If a’ that I can be’s nae mair Than what mankind’s been yet, I’ll no’ Begink the instincts thistlewise That dern—and canna show.

Damned threids and thrums and skinny shapes O’ a’ that micht, and su’d, ha’ been —Life onyhow at ony price!— In sic I’ll no’ be seen!

_Fier comme un Ecossais._

The wee reliefs we ha’e in booze, Or wun at times in carnal states, May hide frae us but canna cheenge The silly horrors o’ oor fates.

_Fier—comme un Ecossais!_

There’s muckle in the root That never can wun oot, Or’t owre what is ’ud sweep Like a thunderstorm owre sheep.

But shadows whiles upcreep, And heavy tremors leap ... C’wa’, Daith, again, sned Life’s vain shoot, And your ain coonsel keep!...

Time like a bien wife, Truth like a dog’s gane— The bien wife’s gane to the aumrie To get the puir dog a bane.

Opens the aumrie door, And lo! the skeleton’s there, And the gude dog, Truth, has gotten Banes for evermair....

_Maun I tae perish in the keel o’ Heaven, And is this fratt upon the air the ply O’ cross-brath’d cordage that in gloffs and gowls Brak’s up the vision o’ the warld’s bricht gy?_

_Ship’s tackle and an eemis cairn o’ fraucht Darker than clamourin’ veins are roond me yet, A plait o’ shadows thicker than the flesh, A fank o’ tows that binds me hand and fit._

_What gin the gorded fullyery on hie And a’ the fanerels o’ the michty ship Gi’e back mair licht than fa’s upon them ev’n Gin sic black ingangs haud us in their grip?_

Grugous thistle, to my een Your widdifow ramel evince, Sibness to snakes wha’s coils Rin coonter airts at yince, And fain I’d follow each Gin you the trick’ll teach.

Blin’ root to bleezin’ rose, Through a’ the whirligig O’ shanks and leafs and jags What sends ye sic a rig? Bramble yokin’ earth and heaven, Till they’re baith stramulyert driven!

Roses to lure the lift And roots to wile the clay And wuppit brainches syne To claught them ’midyards tae Till you’ve the precious pair Like hang’d men dancin’ there,

Wi’ mony a seely prickle You’ll fleg a sunburst oot, Or kittle earthquakes up Wi’ an amusin’ root, While, kilted in your tippet, They still can mak’ their rippit....

And let me pit in guid set terms My quarrel wi’ th’owre sonsy rose, That roond aboot its devotees A fair fat cast o’ aureole throws That blinds them, in its mirlygoes, To the necessity o’ foes.

Upon their King and System I Glower as on things that whiles in pairt I may admire (at least for them), But wi’ nae claim upon my hert, While a’ their pleasure and their pride Ootside me lies—and there maun bide.