The language that but sparely flooers
And maistly gangs to weed;
The thocht o Christ and Calvary
Aye likkenin in my heid;
And aa the dour provincial thocht
That merks the Scottish breed
- These are the thistle's characters,
To argie there's nae need.
Hoo weel my verse embodies
The thstle you can read !
- But will a Scotsman never
Frae this vile growth be freed?...

O ilka man alive is like
A quart that's squeezed into a pint
[A maist unScottish-like affair !]
Or like the little maid that showed
Me into a still smaaer room.

What use to let a sunrise fade
To hae anither like't the morn.
Or let a generation pass
That ane nae better may succeed,
Or wi aa time's machinery
Keep naething new aneth the sun,
Or change things oot o kennin that
They may be aa the mair the same?

The thistle in the wund dissolves
In lichtnin's as shook foil gies way
In sudden spendours, or the flesh
As Daith lets slip the infinite soul;
And syne it's like a sunrise tint
In grey o day, or love and life
That in a cloody bash o sperm
Undae the warld to big't again,
Or like a pickled foetus that
Nae man feels ocht in common wi
- But might as easily ha' been !
Or like a corpse a soul set free
Scunners to think it tenanted
- And little recks that but for it
It never micht ha' been at aa,
Like love frae lust and God frae man !

The waste scam that dries like stairch
And pooders aff, that micht ha been
A warld o men and syne o Gods;
They grey that haunts the vievest green;
The wrang side o the noblest scene
We ne'er can whummle to oor een,
As 'twere the hinderpairts o God,
His face aye turned the opposite road,
Or's neth the flooers the drumlie clods
Frae which they come at sicna odds,
As aa Earth's magic frae a spirt
In shame and secrecy o dirt !

Then shak nae mair in silly life,
Nor stand impossible as Daith,
Incredible as aathing is
Inside or oot owre closely scanned.
As mithers aften think the warld
O bairns that hae nae end or object,
Or lovers think their sweethearts made
Yince-yirn - wha haena waled the lave,
Maikless - when they are naebody,
Or men o ilka sort and kind
Are prood o thochts they caa their ain,
That nameles millions had afore
And nameless millions yet'll hae,
And that were never woth the haen,
Or Cruvie's 'latest' story or
Gilsanquhar's vows to sign the pledge,
Or's if I thoucht maist whisky was
Or failed to coont the cheenge I got,
Sae wad I be gin I rejoiced,
Or didna kan my place, in thee.

O stranglin rictus, sterile spasm,
Thou stricture in the groins o licht,
Thou ootrie gangrel frae the wilds
O chaos fenced frae Eden yet
By the unspinterable waa
O munebeams like a bleeze o swords !

Nae chance lunge cuts the Gordian knot,
Nor sall the belly find relief
In wha's entangled moniplies
Creation like a stoppage jams,
Or in whose loins the mapamound
Runckles in strawns o bubos whaur
The generations gravel.
The soond o water winnin free,
The sicht o licht that braks the rouk,
The thocht o every thwart owrecome
Are in my ears and een and brain,
In whom the bluid is spilt in stour,
In whom aa licht in darkness fails,
In whom the mystery o life
Is to a wretched weed bewrayed.

But let my soul increase in me,
God dwarfed to enter my puir thocht
Expand to his true size again,
And protoplasm's look befit
The nature o its destiny,
And seed and sequence be nae mair
Incongruous to ane anither
And liquor packed impossibly
Mak pint-pot an enternal well,
And art be relevant to life,
And poets mair than dominies yet,
And ends nae langer tint in means,
Nor forests hidden by their trees,
Nor men be sacrificed alive
In foonds o fates designed for them,
Nor mansions o the soul stand toom
Their owners in their cellars trapped,
Nor aa a people's genius be
A rumple-fyke in heaven's doup,
While Calvanism uses her
To breed a minister or twa !

A black leaf owre a white leaf twirls,
A grey leaf flauchters in atween,
Sae ply my thochts aboot the stem
O loppert slime frae which they spring.
The thistle like a snawstorm drives,
Or like a flicht o swallows lifts,
Or like a swarm o midges hings,
A plague o moths, a starry sky,
But naethings but a thistle yet,
And still the puzzle stnads unsolved.
Beauty and ugliness alike,
And life and daith and God and man,
Are aspects o't but nane can tell
The secret that I'd fain find oot
O this bricht hive, this sorry weed,
The tree that fills the universe,
Or like a reistit herrin crines.

Gin I was sober I micht think
It was like something drunk men see !

Yhe necromancy in my bluid
Through aa the gamut cheenges me
O dwarf and giant, foul and fiar,
But winna let me be mysel
- My mither's womb that reins me still
Until I tae can prick the withc
And 'Wumman' cry wi Christ at last,
'Then what hast thou to do wi me?'

The tug-o-war is in me still
The dog-hank o the flech and soul -
Faither in Heaven, what gar'd ye tak
A village slut to mither me,
Your mongrel o the fire and clay?
the trollop and the Deity share
My writhen form as tho I were
A picture o the time they had
When Licht rejoined to file itsel
And Earth upshuddered like a star.

A drucken hizzie gane to bed
Wi three-in-ane and ane-in-three.

O fain I'd drink until I saw
Scotland a ferlie o delicht,
And fain bide drunk no hae't recede
Into a shrivelled thistle syne,
As when a sperklin tide rins oot,
And leaves a wreath o rubbish there !

Wull aa the seas gang dry at last
[As dry as I am gettin noo].
Or wull they aye come back again,
Seilfu as my neist drink to me,
Or as the sunlicht to the mune,
Or as the bonny sangs o men,
Wha're but puir craiturs in themsels,
And save when genius maks them drunk,
As donnert as their audinces,
- As dreams that mak a tramp a king,
A madman sane to his ain mind
Or what a Scotsman thinks himsel,
Tho naethin but a thistle kyths.

The mair I drink the thirstier yet,
And whiles when I'm alowe wi booze,
I'm like God's sel and clad in fire,
And hae a Pentecost like this
O wad that I could aye be fou,
And no come back as aye I maun
To naething but a fule that nane
'Ud credit wi sic thochts as thae,
A fule that kens they're empty dreams !

Yet but fer drink and drink's effects,
The yeast o God that barms in us,
We micht as weel no be alive.
It maitters not what drink is taen,
The barley bree, ambition, love,
Or Guid or Evil workin in's
Sae lang's we feel like sould set free
Frae mortal coils and speak in tongues
We dinna ken and never wull,
And find a merit in oor sels,
In Cruvies and Gilsanquhars tae,
And see the thitstle as ocht but that !

For wha o's hae the thistle's pooer
To see we're worthless and believe't.

Aa thing that ony man can be's
A mockery o his soul at last.
The mair it show's the better, and
I'd sunner be a tramp thn king,
Lest in the pride o place and pooer
I e'er forgot my waesomeness.
Sae to debaucheriy and dirt,
And to disease and daith I turn,
Sin otherwise my seemin worth
'Ud block my view o what is what,
And blin me to the irony
O bein a grocer 'neth the sun,
A lawyer gin justice ope'd her een,
A pedant like an ant promoted,
A parson buttonholin God,
Or ony creature o the Earth
Smaa-bookt to john smith, High street, Perth,
Or sic like vulgar gaffe o life
Sub specie aeternitatis -
Nae void can fleg me hauf as much
As bein mysel, whate'er I am
Or, waur, bein ony body else.

The nervous thistle's shiverin like
A horse's skin aneth a cleg,
Or Northern Lichts or lustres o
A soul that Daith has fastened on,
Or mornin eftir the night afore.

Shudderin thistle gie owre, gie owre....

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