Hugh MacDiarmid

The function, as it seems to me,
O’ Poetry is to bring to be
At lang, lang last that unity ...

But wae’s me on the weary wheel!
Higgledy-piggledy in’t we reel,
And little it cares hoo we may feel.

Twenty-six thoosand years ’t’ll tak’
For it to threid the Zodiac

I’ the how-dumb-deid o’ the cauld hairst nicht
The warl’ like an eemis stane
Wags i’ the lift;
An’ my eerie memories fa’
Like a yowdendrift.

Like a yowdendrift so’s I couldna read
The words cut oot i’ the stane
Had the fug o’ fame

Aulder than mammoth or than mastodon
Deep i’ the herts o’ a’ men lurk scaut-heid
Skrymmorie monsters few daur look upon.
Brides sometimes catch their wild een, scansin’ reid,
Beekin’ abune the herts they thocht to lo’e
And horror-stricken ken that i’ themselves
A like beast stan’s, and lookin’ love thro’ and thro’
Meets the reid een wi’ een like seevun hells.

(To John Gawsworth) The rose of all the world is not for me.
I want for my part

(To James H. Whyte) All is lithogenesis—or lochia,
Carpolite fruit of the forbidden tree,

(For George Reston Malloch) There’s teuch sauchs growin’ i’ the Reuch Heuch Hauch.
Like the sauls o’ the damned are they,

(In Memoriam: Charles Doughty, 1843-1926) Under no hanging heaven-rooted tree,
Though full of mammuks’ nests,

(To William and Flora Johnstone) Wheesht, wheesht, Joyce, and let me hear
Nae Anna Livvy’s lilt,

Ae weet forenicht i’ the yow-trummle
I saw yon antrin thing,
A watergaw wi’ its chitterin’ licht
Ayont the on-ding;
An’ I thocht o’ the last wild look ye gied
Afore ye deed!

There was nae reek i’ the laverock’s hoose
That nicht—an’ nane i’ mine;