Juist as man’s skeleton has left
Its ancient ape-like shape ahint,
Sae states o’ mind in turn gi’e way
To different states, and quickly seem
Impossible to later men,
And Man’s mind in its final shape,
Or lang’ll seem a monkey’s spook,
And, strewth, to me the vera thocht
O’ Thocht already’s fell like that!
Yet still the cracklin’ thorns persist
In fitba’ match and peepy show,
To antic hay a dog-fecht’s mair
Than Jacob v. the Angel,
And through a cylinder o’ wombs,
A star reflected in a dub,
I see as ’twere my ain wild harns
The ripple o’ Eve’s moniplies.

And faith! yestreen in Cruivie’s een
Life rocked at midnicht in a tree,
And in Gilsanquhar’s glower I saw
The taps o’ waves ’neth which the warld
Ga’ed rowin’ like a jeelyfish,
And whiles I canna look at Jean
For fear I’d see the sunlicht turn
Worm-like into the glaur again!

A black leaf owre a white leaf twirls,
My liver’s shadow on my soul,
And clots o’ bluid loup oot frae stems
That back into the jungle rin,
Or in the waters underneath
Kelter like seaweed, while I hear
Abune the thunder o’ the flood,
The voice that aince commanded licht
Sing ‘Scots Wha Ha’e’ and hyne awa’

Like Cruivie up a different glen,
And leave me like a mixture o’
A wee Scotch nicht and Judgment Day,
The bile, the Bible, and the Scotsman,
Poetry and pigs—Infernal Thistle,
Damnition haggis I’ve spewed up,
And syne return to like twa dogs!
Blin’ Proteus wi’ leafs or hands
Or flippers ditherin’ in the lift
—Thou Samson in a warld that has
Nae pillars but your cheengin’ shapes
That dung doon, rise in ither airts
Like windblawn reek frae smoo’drin’ ess!
—Hoo lang maun I gi’e aff your forms
O’ plants and beasts and men and Gods
And like a doited Atlas bear
This steeple o’ fish, this eemis warld,
Or, maniac heid wi’ snakes for hair,
A Maenad, ape Aphrodite,
And scunner the Eternal sea?

Man needna fash and even noo
The cells that mak’ a’e sliver wi’m,
The threidy knit he’s woven wi’,
’Ud fain destroy what sicht he has
O’ this puir transitory stage,
Yet tho’ he kens the fragment is
O’ little worth he e’er can view,
Jalousin’ it’s a cheatrie weed,
He tyauves wi’ a’ his micht and main
To keep his sicht despite his kind
Conspirin’ as their nature is
’Gainst ocht wi’ better sicht than theirs.

What gars him strive? He canna tell—
It may be nocht but cussedness.
—At best he hopes for little mair
Than his suspicions to confirm,
To mock the sicht he hains sae weel
At last wi’ a’ he sees wi’ it,
Yet, thistle or no’ whate’er its end,
Aiblins the force that mak’s it grow
And lets him see a kennin’ mair
Than ither folk and fend his sicht
Agen their jealous plots awhile
’ll use the poo’ers it seems to waste,
This purpose ser’d, in ither ways,
That may be better worth the bein’
—Or sae he dreams, syne mocks his dream
Till Life grows sheer awa’ frae him,
And bratts o’ darkness plug his een.

It may be nocht but cussedness,
But I’m content gin a’ my thocht
Can dae nae mair than let me see,
Free frae desire o’ happiness,
The foolish faiths o’ ither men
In breedin’, industry, and War,
Religion, Science, or ocht else
Gang smash—when I ha’e nane mysel’,
Or better gin I share them tae,
Or mind at least a time I did!

Aye, this is Calvary—to bear
Your Cross wi’in you frae the seed,
And feel it grow by slow degrees
Until it rends your flesh apairt,
And turn, and see your fellow-men
In similar case but sufferin’ less
Thro’ bein’ mair wudden frae the stert!…

 

from A Drunk Man Looks at Throbbing Thistle