I, in the Thistle’s land,
As you* 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,”**
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.

*Dostoevsky
**Quoted from Robert Buchanan

from A Drunk Man Looks at Throbbing Thistle