Narodbogonosets are my folk tae,
But in a smaa way nooadays -
A faitherly God wi a ng white beard,
Or painted Jesus in a haze
O blue and gowd, a gird abbot his hied
Or some sic thing. It's been a sair come-doon,
And the trade's nocht to what it was.
Unnatural practices are the cause.
Baith barins and God'll be obsolete soon
[The twaesome gang thegither]. and forsooth
Scotland turn Eliot's waste - the Land o Drouth.

But even as the stane the builders rejec'
Becomes the corner-stane, the time may be
When Scotland sall find oot its destiny,
And yield the vse-chelovek
- At aa events, owre Europe flaught atween,
My whim [and mair than whim] it pleases
To seek the haund o Russia as a freen
In workin oot mankind's great synthesis....

Melville [a Scot] kent weel hoo Christ's
Corrupted into creeds malign,
Begotten strife's pernicious brood
That claims for patron Him Divine.
[The Kirk in Scotland still I cry
Crooks whaur it canna crucify !]

Christ, bleedin like the thistle's roses,
He saw - as I in similar case -
Maistly, in beauty and in fear,
'Ud paralyse the nobler race,
Smite or suspend, perplex, deter,
And, tortured, prove the torturer

And never mair a Scot sall tryst,
Abies on Calvary, wi christ,
Unless, mebbe, a poem like this'll
Exteriorise things in a thistle,
and gie him in this form forlorn
What Melville socht in vain frae Hawthorne....

Spirit o strife, destroy in turn
Syne this fule's Paradise, syne that;
In thee's in Calvaries that owrecome
Daith efter Daith let me caught,

Or in the human form that hauds
Us in its ignomonious thrall,
While on brute needs oor souls attend
Until disease and daith end all

Or in the grey deluded brain,
Reflectin in anither field
The torments o its parent flesh
In thocht-preventin thocht concealed,

Or still in curst impossible mould,
Last thistle-shape men think to tak,
The soul, frae flesh and thocht set free,
On Heaven's strait if unseen rack.

Ther may be heicher forms in which
We can nae mair oor plicht define,
Because the agonies involved
'll brring us thier ain anodyne.

Yet still we suffer and still sall,
Altho, puir fules, we mayna kne't
As lang as like the thistle we
In coil and in recoil are pent.

And ferrer than mankind can look
Ghast shapes that free but to transfix
Twine rose-crooned in thie agonies,
And strive agen the endless pricks.

The dooble play that bigs and braks
In endless victory and defeat
Is in your spikes and roses shown,
And aa my soul is haggar'd wi't....

Be like the thistle, O my soul,
Heedless o praise and quick to tak affront,
And growin like a mockery o aa
Maist like can want or thole,
And manifest forevermair
Contempt o ilka goal.

O ilka goal - save ane alane;
To be yoursel, whatever that may be.
And contemptupus o that,
Kennin nocht's worth the haen,
But certainly that nocht can be,
And hoo that certainty to gain.

For this you still maun grow and grope
In the abyss wi ever-deepenin roots
That croon your scunner wi the grue
O hopeless hope
- And gin the abyss is bottomless,
Your growth'll never stop !...

What earthquake chitters oot
In the Thistle's oorie shape,
What gleids o centrl fire
In its reid heids escape,
And whatna coonter forces
In growth and ingrowth graip
In an eternal clinch
In this oot cuissan form
That winna be outcast,
But triumphs at the last
[Owre aa abies itsel
As fer as we can tell,
Sin frae the Eden o the world
Ilka man in turn is hurled,
And ilka gairden rins to waste
That was ever to his taste] ?

O keep the Thistle 'yont the waa
Owre which your skeletons you'll thraw.

I, in the Thistle's land,
As you in Russia where
Struggle in giant form
Proceeds for evermair,
In my smaa measure 'bood
Address 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 big his life upon
The everloupin fountain
That frae the Dark ascends
Whar 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-decception,
And hoo his mind can be
But as a floatin iceberg
That hides aneth the sea
It's 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 taks he kens wha kens Life's plan.

But there a flegsome deeps
Whaur the soul o Scotland sleeps
That I to bottom need
To wauk Guid kens what deid,
Play at sterle-a-stobie,
Wi nation's dust for a 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 apperas
This Christ o the neist thoosan years.

As frae you baggit wife
You turned whenever able,
And often when you werna,
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 like,
- As Burns in Edingurgh
Breenged arse-owre-heid thoro
Aa it could be the spur o
To pleuch his sauted furrow,
And turned frae aa men honour
To what could only scunner.

Wha thinks that common-sense
Can e'er be but a fence
To keep a soul worth haen
Frae what it s'ud be daein
- Sai I in turn maun gie
My saul to misery,
Daidle disease
Upon my knees,
And welcome madness
Wi exceedin gladness
- Aye, open wide my hert
To aa the thistle's smert.

And aa the hopes o men
Sall be like wiles then
To gar my sould betray
Its only richfu' 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 o 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 aa the inklin's cryptic,
Then o an epileptic,
I hae been stood in you
And droukit in their grue
Till I can see reicht through
Ilk weakness o my frame
And ilka dernin shame,
And can employ the same
To jouk the curse o fame,
Loused frae the dominion
O popular opinion,
And risen at last abune
The thistle like a mune
That looks serenely doon
On what queer thins there are
In an inferior star
That couldna be, or see,
Themsels, except in me.

Wi burnt-oot hert and poxy face
I sall illumine aa the place,
And there is ne'er a fount o grace
That isna in a similar case.

Let aa 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 gie
Their eccentricity,
And leave the lave to dree
Their weirdless destiny.

It's no withoot regret
That I maun follow yet
The road that led me past
Humanity sae fast,
Yet scarce can gie a fate
That is at last mair fit
To them wha tak that gait
Than theirs wha winna hae't,
seein that nae man can get
By ony airt ot wile,
A destiny quite worth while
As fer as he can tell
- Or even you yoursel !

And O ! I canna thole
Aye yabblin o my soul,
And fain I wad be free
O my eternal me,
Nor fare mysel alane
- Withoot that tae be gane,
And this, I hae nae doot,
This road'll bring aboot.

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