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 aftir the night afore.

Shudderin thistle gie owre, gie owre...

Grey sand is churnin in my lugs
The munelicht flees, and gantin there
The grave o aa mankind's laid bare
- On hell itsel the drawback rugs !

Nae man can ken his hert until
The tide o life uncovers it,
And horror struck he sees a pit
Returnin life can never fill !...

Thou art the facts in ilka airt
That breenge into infinity,
Criss-crossed wi coontless ithe facts
Nae man can follow, and o which
He is himsel a helpless pairt,
Held in their tangle as he were
A stick-nest in Ygdrasil !

The less man sees the mair he is
Content wi't, but the mair he sees
The mair he kens hoo little o
Aa that there is he'll ever see.
And hoo it maks confusion aye
The waur confoondit till at last
His brain inside his heid is like
Ariadne wi an empty pirn,
Or like a birlin reel frae which
A whale has rived the line awaa.

What better's a forhooied nest
Than shaslock scattered owre the grun?

O hard it is for man to ken
He's no creation's goal nor yet
A benefitter by't at last -
A means to ends he'll never ken,
And as to michtier elements
The slauchtered brutes he eats to him
Or forms o live wore smaa to see
Wi which his heedless body swarms,
And aa man's thocht nae mair to them
Than ony moose-wob to a man,
His Heaven to them the blinterin o
A snail-trail on their closet waa !

For what's an atom o a twig
That taks a billion to an inch
To aa the routh o shoots that mak
The bygrowth o the Earth aboot
The michty trunk o Space that spreids
Ramel o licht tht hae nae end,
- The trunk wi centuries for rings,
Comets for fruit, November shooers
For leafs that in its Autumns faa
- And Man at maist o sic a twig
Ane o the coontless atoms is !

My sinnens and my veins are but
As muckle o a single shoot
Wha's fibre I can ne'er unwaft
O my wife's flesh and mither's flesh
And aa the flesh o humankind,
And revelled thrums o beasts and plants
As gangs to mak 'twixt birth and daith
Ae sliver for a microscope;
And aa the life o Earth to be
Can never lift frae underneath
The shank o which oor destiny's pairt
As heich's to stand forenenst the trunk
Stupendous as a windlestrae !

I'm under nae delusions, fegs !
The whuppin sooker at wha's tip
Oor little point o view appears,
A midget coom o continents
Wi blebs o eoceans set, sends up
The braith o daith as weel as life,
And we maun braird anither tip
Oot owre us ere we wither rae,
And join the sentrice skeleton
As coral insects big their reefs.

What is the tree? As fer as Man's
Concerned it disna maitter
Gin but a giant thistle 'tis
That spreids eternal mischief there,
As I'm inclined to think.
Ruthless it sends its solid growth
Through mair than he can e'er conceive,
And braks his warlds abreid and rives
His Heaven to tatters on it horns.

The nature or the purpose o't
He needna fash to spier, for he
Is destined to be sune owre grown
And hidden wi the parent wud
The spreidin boughs in darkness hap,
And aa its future lfe'll be
Ootwith'm as he's ootwith his banes.

Juist as man's skeleton has left
Its ancient ape-like shpae ahint,
Sae states o mind in turn gie 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 fitbaa match and peepy show
To antic hay and dog-fecht mair
Than Jacob v. the Angle,
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 Cruvie's een
Life rocked at midnicht in a tree,
And in Gilsanquhar's glower I saw
The taps o waves 'neth which the warld
Gaed rowin like a jeelyfish,
And whiles I canna look at Jean
For fear I'd seen the sunlicht turn
Worm-like into the glaur again !

A black leaf owre a white leaf twirls,
My liver's shadow on the soul,
And clots o bluid loup out 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 aine commanded licht
Sing 'Scots Wha Hae' and byne awaa
Like Cruivie up a different glen,
And leave me like a mixture o
A wee Scotch nicht and Judgement Day,
The bile, the Bible and the Scotsman,
Poetry and pigs, - Infernal Thistle,
Damnation 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 feek frae smoodrin ess !
- Hoo lang maun I gie aff your forms
O plants and beasts and men and Gods
And like a doited Atlas bear
This steeple of 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 ae sliver wi'im,
The threidly 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 aa his micht and main
To keep his sicht despite his kind
Conspirin a 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 lat wi aa he sees si it,
Yet thistle or no, whate'er its end,
Aiblins the force that maks it grow
And lets him see a kennin mair
Than itherfolk and fend his sicht
Agen their jealous plots awhile,
'll use the pooers it seems to waste,
This purpose ser'd, in ither ways,
That mat be better worth the bein
- Or sae he dreams, syne mocks his dream
Till Life grows sheer awaa frae him,
And bratts o darkness plug his een.

It may be nocht but cusseness,
But i'm content gin aa 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 hae 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 !...

I'm fu' o a sticket God.
THAT's what's the maitter wi me,
Jean has stuck sic a fok in the waa
That I row in agonie.

Mary never let dab.
SHE was a canny wumman.
She hedna gaw in Joseph at aa
But, wow, this second comin !...

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