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I'm weary o the rose as o my brain, And for a deeper knowledge I am fain Than frae this noddin object I can gain Beauty is ae thing, but it tines anither [For, fegs, they never can be fund thegither]. And 'twixt the twa it's no for me to swither. As frae the grun sae thocht frae men springs oot, A ferlie that tells little o its soure, I doot, And has nae vera fundamental root. And cauld agen my hert are laid The words o Plato when he said, 'God o geometry is made.' Frae my ain mind I faa away, That never yet was feared to say What turned the souls o men to clay, Nor cared gin truth frae me ootsprung In ne'er a leed o ony tongue That ever in a heid was hung. I ken hoo much oor life is fated Aince its first cell is animated, The fount frae which the flesh is jetted. I ken hoo lourd the body lies Upon the spirit when it flies And fain abune its stars 'ud rise. And see I noo a great wheel move, And aa the notions that I love Drap into stented groove and groove? It maitters not my mind the day, Nocht maitters that I strive to dae, - For the wheel moves on in its ain way. I sall be moved as it decides To look at Life frae ither sides; Rejoice, rebel, its turn abides. And as I see the great wheel spin There flees a licht frae't lang and thin That Earth is like a snaw-baa in. [To the uncanny thocht I clutch - The nature o man's soul is such That it can ne'er wi life tine touch. Man's mind is in God's image made, And in its wildest dreams arrayed In pairt o Truth is still displayed.] |
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Then suddenly I see as weel As me spun roon within the wheel the helpless forms o God and Deil. And on a birlin edge I see Wee Scotland squattin like a flea, And dizzy wi the speed, and me ! I've aften thrawn the warld frae me, Into the Pool o Space, to see The circles o Infinity. Or like a flat stone gar'd it skite, A Morse code message writ in licht That yet I couldna read aricht. The skippin sparks, the ripples, rit Like skritches o a grain o grit 'Neth Juggernaut in which I sit. Twenty-six thoosand years it taks Afore ae single roond it maks, And syne it melts as it were wax. The Phoenix guise 't'll rise in syne Is mair than Euclid of Einstein Can dream o oor's in dreams o mine. Upon the huge circumference are As neebor points the heavenly War That dung doon Lucifer sae far, And that upheald in which I Sodgered 'neth the Grecian sky And in Italy and Marsielles, And there isna room for men Wha the haill o history ken To pit a pin twixt then and then. Whaur are Bannockburn and Flodden? - O ae grain like facets hod'n, Little wars [twixt that which God in Focht and won, and that with He Took baith sides in hopelessly], Less than God or I can see. By whatna cry o mine oot-topped Sall be aa men hae sung and hoped When to ae note they're telescoped? And Jesus and a nameless ape Collide an share the selfsame shape That nocht terrestial can esape? But less than this nae man need try, He'd better be content to eye The wheel in silence whirlin by. Nae verse is worth a haen until It can join issue wi th Will That rased the Wheel and spins it still, But aa the music that mankind 'S made yet is to the Earth confined, Pooerless to reach the general mind, Pooerless to reach the neist star e'en, That as a pairt o'ts sel is seen, And only men can tell between. Yet I exult oor sang has yet To grow wings that'll cairry it Ayont its native speck o grit, And I exult to find in me The thocht that this can ever be, A hope still for humanity. For gin the sun ane mune at last Are as a neebor's lintel passed, The wheel'll tine its stature fast, And birl in time inside oor heids Till we can thraw oor conscious gleids That draw an answer to oor needs, Or ir nae answer still we find Brichten till aathing is defind In the huge licht-beams o oor kind, And if we still can find nae trace Ahint the Wheel o ony Face, There'll be a glory in the place, And we may aiblins swing content Upon the wheel in which we're pent In adequate enlightenment. Nae ither thocht can mitigate The horror o the endless fate Aathing 's whirled in predestinate. O whiles I'd fain be blin to it, As men wha through the ages sit, And never move frae aff the bit, Wha hear a Burns o Shakespeare sing, Yet still their ain bit jingles string, As they were worth the fashioning. Whatever Scotland is to me, Be it aye pairt o aa men see O Earth and o Eternity Wha winna hide their heids in't till It seeems the hail o Space to fill, As t'were an unsurmounted hill. |
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He canna Scotlan see wha yet Canna see the Infinite, And Scotland in true scale to it. Nor blame I muckle, wham atour Earth's coounties blaw, a pickle sour, To sort wha'w grains they hae nae pooer. E'en stars are seen thegither in Ae skime o licht as grey as tin Fyin on the whell as 'twere a pin. Syne ither systems ray on ray skinkle past in quick aray While it is still the slaf-same day, Ae day o aa the million days Through which the soul o man can gaze Upon the wheel's incessant blaze, Upon the wheel's incessant blaze As it wer on a single place That twinklin filled the howe o space. Ae point is aa that it can be, I wis nae man 'll ever see The test o the rotundity. Impersonality sall blaw Through me as 'twere a bluffert o snaw To scour me o my sense o awe, A bluffert o snaw, the licht that flees Within the Wheel, and Freedom gies Frae Dust and Daith and aa Disease, - The drumlie doom that only weighs On them wha haena seen their place Yet in creations lichtnin race, In the movement that includes As a tide's reistless floods Aa their movements and their moods - Until disinterested we, O aa oor auld delusions fee, Lowe in the wheel's serenity As conscious ithems in the licht, And keen to keep it clear and bricht In which the haill machine is dicht. The licht nae man has ever seen Till he has felt that he's been gien The stars themselvls insteed o een, And often wi the sun has glowered At the white mune until it cowered, As when by new thocht o'er powered. Oor universe is like an ee Turned in, man's benmaist hert to see, And swamped in subjectivity. But whether it can use its sicht To bring what lies withoot to licht To answer's still ayont my micht. But when that inturned look has brocht To licht what still in vain it's socht Ootward maun be the bent o thocht. And organs may develope syne Responsive to the need divine O single-minded humankin. The function, as it seems to me. O Poetry is to bring to be At lang, lang last the unity.... But waes me on the wary wheel ! Higgledy-piggledy in't we rlle, And little it cares hoo we may feel. Twenty-six thousnad years 't'll tak For it to threid the Zodiac - A single roond o the whell to mak ! Lately it turned - I saw mysel In sic a compny doomed to mell, I micht hae been in Dante's Hell. It shows hoo little the best o men e'en o themslves at times can ken, - I sune saw that when I gaed ben. The lesser wheel within the big That moves as merry as a grig, Wi mankind in its whirligig, And hasna turned ae circle yet Tho as it turns we slide in it, And needs maun tak the place we get, I felt it turn, and syne I saw John Knox and Clavers in my raw, And Mary Queen o Scots anaa, And Rabbie burns and Weelum Wallace, And Carlyle lookin unco gallus, And Harry Lauder [to enthrall us]. And as I looked I saw them aa Aa the Scots baith big and smaa, That e'er the braith o life did draw. 'Mercy o Gode, I canna thole Wi sic an orra mob to roll.' - Wheesht! it's for the guid o your soul' But what's the meanin, what's the sense? - Men shift but by experience. 'Twixt Scots there is nae difference. They canna learn, sae canna move, But stick for aye to their auld groove - The ony race in History who've Bidden in the sanme category Frae stert to present o their story, And deem their ignorance their glory. The mair they differ, mair the same, The wheel can whummle aa but them, - They caa their obstinacy 'Hame'. And 'Puir Auld Scotland' bleat wi pride, And wi their minds made up to bide A thorn in aa the wide world's side. There hae been Scots wha hae haen thochts, They're sttrwn through maist o the various lots - Sic traitors are nae langer Scots ! |
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But why in this huge ineducable
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