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Yank oot your orra boughs, my hert !
God gied man speech and
speech created thocht,
He gied man speech but to the Scots gied nocht
Barrin this clytach that they've never brocht
To onything but sic a Blottie O
As some bairn's copybook micht show,
A spook o soond that frae the unkent grave
In which oor nation liew loups up to wave
Sic leprous chuns as tatties have
That cellar-boond send spindles gropin
Towards ony hole that's open,
Like waesome fingers in the bark that think
They still may widen the ane and only chink
That e'er has gien mankind a blink
O Hope - tho eve'n in that puir licht
They s'ud hae seen their hopeless plicht.
This puir relation o my topplin mood,
This country cousin, streak o churl-bluid,
This hopeless airgh 'twixt aa we can and should,
This Past that like Astarte's sting I feel,
This arrow in Achilles' heel.
Yank oot your orra boughs, my hert !
Mebbe we're in a vicious circle cast,
Mebbe there's limits we can ne'er get past,
Mebbe we're sentrices that at the last
Are flung aside, and no the pillars and props
O Heaven foraye as in oor hopes.
Oor growth at least nae steady progress shows,
Genius in mankind like an antrin rose
Abune a jungly waste o effort grows,
But to Man's purpose it maks little odds,
And seems irrelevant to God's....
Eneuch? then here you are. Her's the haill story.
Life's connached shapes tooer up in croons o glory,
Perpetuatin, natheless, in their glory
Colour the endless sacrifice and pain
That to their makins gane.
The roses like the saints in Heaven treid
Triumphant owre the agonies o their breed.
And wag fu' mony a celestial heid
Abune the thorter-ills o leaf and prick
In which they ken the feck maun stick.
Yank oot your orra boughs, my hert !
A mongrel growth, jumble o disproportions,
Whirlin in its incredible contortions,
Or wad-be client that an auld whore whuns,
Wardin her wizend orange o a bosom
Frae importunities sae gruesome,
Or new diversion o the hormones
Mair fond o procreation than the Mormons,
And fetchin like a devastain storm on's
Aa the uncouth dilemmas o oor natur
Objectified in vegetable maitter.
Yank oot your orra boughs, my hert !
And heed nae mair the foolish cries that beg
You slice nair to aff or pu' to leg,
You skitin duffer that gars aabody fleg
- What tho you ding the haill warld oot o joint
Wi a skier to cover point !
Yank oot your orra boughs, my hert !
There was a danger - and it's weel I see't -
Had brocht ye like Mallarmé to defeat: -
'Mon doubte, amas de nuit ancienne, s'achève
En maint rameau subtil, qui, demeuré les vrais
Bois memes, prove, hélas! que bien seul je m'offrais
Pour triomph la faute idéale de roses.'
Yank oot your orra boughs,
my hert !
I love to muse upon the skill that gangs
To mak the simplest thing that Earth displays,
The eident life that ilka atom thrangs,
And uses it in the appointit ways,
And aa the endless brain that nocht escapes
That myriad mover them to inimitable shapes.
Nor to their customed form nor ony ither
New to Creation, by man's cleverest mind,
Aa needfu' particles first brocht thegither,
Could they wi timeless labour be combined.
There's nocht that Sciencce yet's begood to see
In hauf its deemless detain or its destiny.
Oor een gie answers based on pairt-seen facts
That beg aa questions, to ebb mind's content,
But hoo ae feature or the neist attracts,
Wi millions mair unseen, wha kens what's meant
By human brains and to what ends may tell
- For Naithing seen or kent that's near a thing itsel !
Let whasae vaunts his knowledge then and syne
Sets up a God and kens His purpose tae
Tell me what's gart ae strain o maitter twine
In sic an extraordinary way,
And what God's purpose wi the thistle is
- I'll aiblins ken what he and his God's worth by this.
I've watched it lang and hard until I hae
A certain symp'thy wi its orra ways
And pride in its success, as weel I may,
In growin esactly as its instint says,
Save in sae fer as thwarts o weather or grun
Or man or ither foes hae'ts aims perchance fordone.
But I can form nae notion o the spirit
That gars it tak the difficult shape it does,
Nor judge the merit or the demerit
O this detail or that sae fer as it goes
T' advance the cause that gied it sic a guise
As maun hae pleased its Makar wi a gey surprise.
The craft that hit upon the reishlin stalk,
Wi'ts gausty leafs and aa its datchie jags,
And spired it syne in seely flooers to brak
Like sudden lauchter owre its foursome rags
Jouks me, sardonic lover, in the routh
O contrairies that jostle in this dumfoondrin growth.
What strength 't'ud need to pit its roses oot,
Or double them in number or in size,
He canna tell wha canna plumb the root,
And learn wat's gar't its present state arise,
And what the limits are that hae been put
To change in thistles, and why - and what a change 'ud boot....
onwart ...4
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