The munelicht that owre clear defines
The thistle's shrill cantankerous lines
E'en noo whiles insubstantialises
Its grisly form and 'stead devises
A maze o licht, a siller-fame,
As 'twere God's dream frae which it came,
Ne'er into bein coorsened yet,
The essence lowin pure in it.
As tho the fire owrecam the clay.
And left its wraith in endless day.

These are the moments when aa sense
Like mist is vanished and intense,
Magic emerges frae the dense
Body o bein and beeks immense
As, like a ghinn oot o a bottle
Daith rises frae's when oor lives crottle.

These are the moments when my sang
Clears its white feet frae oot amang
My broken thocht, and moves as free
As souls frae bodies when they dee.
There's naething left o me avaa
Save aa I'd hoped micht whiles befaa.

Sic sang to men is little worth,
It has nae message for the earth.
Men see their warld turned tapsalteerie,
Drookit in a lich owre eeie,
Or sent birlin like a peerie -
Syne it turns aa they've kent till then
To shapes they can nae langer ken.

Men canna look on nakit licht.
It flings them back wi darkened sicht,
And een that canna look at it
Maun draw earth closer roond them yet
Or, their sicht tint, find nocht insteed
That answers to their waefu' need.

And yet this essence frae the clay
In dooble from aye braks away,
For, in addition to the licht,
There is an e'er-increasing nicht,
A nicht that is the bigger and
Gangs roond licht like an airn band
That noo and then mair tichtly grips,
And snuffs it in a black eclipse,
But rings it maistly as a brough
The mune, till it's juist brisht enough -
O wull I never lowse a licht
I canna dowse again in spite,
Or dull to haud within my sicht?

The thistle canna vanish quite.
Inside aa licht its shape maun glint,
A spirit wi a skeleton in't.

The world, the flesh, 'll bide in us
As in the fire the unburnt buss,
Or as frae sire to son we gang
And coontless corpses in us thrang.
And e'en the glory that descends
I kenna whence on me depends,
And shapes itsel to what is left
Whaur I o me hae me bereft,
And still the form is mine, altho'
A force to which I ne'er could grow
Is movin in't as 'twere a sea
That lang syne drooned the last o me
- That drooned afore the warld began
Aa that could ever come frae Man.

And as at sicna times am I,
I wad hae Scotland tto my eye
Untill I saw a timeless flame
Tak Auchtermuchty for a name,
And kent that Ecclefechan stood
As pairt o an eternal mood.

Ahint the glory comes the night
As Maori to London's ruins,
And I'm amused to see the plicht
O Licht as't in the black tide droons,
Yet even in the brain o Chaos
For Scotland I wad hain a place,
And let Tighnabruaich still
Be pairt and paircel o its will,
And Culloden, black as Hell,
A knowledge it has o itsel.

Thou, Dostoevski, understood,
Wha had your ain land in your bluid,
And into it as in a mould
The passion o your bein rolled,
Inherited in turn frae Heaven
Or sources fer abune it even.

Sae God retracts in endless stage
Through angel, devil, age on age,
Untill at last his infinite natur
Walks on earth a human cratur
[Or less than human as to my een
The people are in Aiberdeen] ;
Sae man returns in endless growth
Till God in him again has scouth.

For sic a loup towards wisdom's croon
Hoo fer a man maun base him doon,
Hoo plunge aboot in Chaos ere
He finds his needfu fittin there,
The matrix oot o which sublime
Serenity sall soar in time !

Hae I the cruelty I need,
contempt and syne contempt o that,
And still contempt in endless meed
That I may never yet be caught
In ony satisfaction, or
Bird-lime that winna let me soar.

Is Scotland big enough to be
A symbol o that force in me,
In wha's diving inebrity
A sicht abune contempt I'll see?

For aa that's Scottish is in me,
As aathings Russsian were in thee,
And I in turn 'ud be an action
My country's contrair qualities,
And mak a unity o these
Till my love owre its history dwells,
As owretone to a peal o bells.

And in this heicher stratosphere
As bairn at giant at thee I peer....

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