#scottish poem

[turquoisewaves07]

The Dancers Inherit the Party

by Ian Hamilton Finlay

When I have talked for an hour I feel lousy –

Not so when I have danced for an hour:

The dancers inherit the party

While the talkers wear themselves out and

sit in corners alone, and glower.

[thefugitivesaint]

James Cassie (1819-1879), 'The Owl', ''Poems & Songs'' by Robert Burns, 1875 Source

[adventuresofalgy]

Algy woke very early on his 13th birthday, for he was much too excited to sleep any longer. It was astonishing to think that so much time had passed since he had started his adventures on tumblr one cool March day, back in 2012… Algy could hardly believe that that was thirteen yearss ago!

Fluttering around the garden drowsily in the dim morning light, he was thrilled to discover that the post bird had left him a wonderful collection of presents and cards beneath the daffodils, and as he started to investigate them, Algy remembered a poem which he had quoted five years ago on his eighth birthday…

She woke before the sun. She heard the still Small sounds which whisper when the night is gone. Though all the curtains of her room were drawn, She saw the gray light creep across the sill. This was her day. How would it help fulfill Her destiny? She looked out at the dawn Stepping across the velvet of the lawn, She saw the purple of a distant hill. In cloak and slippers, she glided through the halls Softly – she would disturb none still asleep – Then looked through maple branches to the sky; Her small heart beating against its delicate walls, The marvel of thirteen years too much to keep. “What is this lovely world, and who am I?”

[Algy has taken the liberty of slightly altering this poem Tenth Birthday by the 20th century American poet Marjorie Knapp.]

[tobelovedmostardently]

Scottish Highlands - Summer, 24

[bodhrancomedy]

A Lament for the Beaches of My Childhood (The North is Where I Long to Go)

If I can’t find a stony beach, I’ll die.

Not golden sand, not beautiful waves

Just rocks

And stones

And driftwood

An inlet like a scar across the landscape

Jagged cliffs and screaming birds -

I’m sick of “beauty”, sick of “soft”

Give me grey and brown and black and cast down skies

Let it rain, that steady mournful stream.

I want to fall and cut my knee

And limp up scrubby dirt-green hills of heather

Gorse and marram grass

All sharp and salt-windswept -

Ugly places lie across my heart like a bruise

I miss them. I want them.

I want to hold the chipped and scratched-up stones against my lips

And kiss away the beatings of the ocean grey -

Where’s the granite? Where’s the slate?

Where’s the shale beneath my feet? I want

to cradle cracked and cast-off things

Forget the beauty and the picture-perfect golden grains

Give me back my wild-flung stones, my broken shells,

The dull, miscoloured-shapen pebbles shaken by high tides.

Give me rocky beaches or I shall surely die.

Bodhrán M

[reds-skull]

I'm researching Scottish mythology for the Cyberknights AU, and I was skimming through the wiki entry for the Glenmasan manuscript (I'd tell you what it is, but I haven't actually finished reading yet), when I read this sentence

Like what are the fucking chances

[illustratus]

Ossian by Johann Michael Wittmer

[rolloroberson]

Thunder (Thorsdagr)

**(Prologue)**

I need a sip of thunder

To make these bones move again,

A shimmering shelter from the darkness

In her cold, dead eyes.

I’ll dip back into the shadows

Of a convenient alleyway—

Bring violence out of the closet

And shove it through your face,

That Vogue mask you wear,

Dusty tricks to sop up the blood

Of children broken by your prideful lust.

I need a sip of thunder

And a bag of fresh snow

To make this heart beat faster,

A volley of magic spoken by Moshe

On the mountain,

To shatter the black morass,

Escaping from your soulless lips.

From Norway’s fjords, where sky meets sea,

To the Highlands' whispers, where spirits run free,

We sailed through storms, our fates intertwined,

With ghosts of ancestors etched deep in my mind.

Through shadows of history, I tread on their ground,

In Carolina’s heart, where lost souls are found.

I need a sip of thunder

And a bag of fresh snow

To make this heart beat faster,

A volley of magic spoken by Moshe

On the mountain,

To shatter the black morass,

Escaping from your soulless lips.

In the galleys of memory, where the past lingers still,

I’ll bring vengeance from the embers of defeat, bend it to my will.

With the weight of my lineage, I rise from the dust,

To confront the demons born of pride and lust,

Glistening in your face, that Vanity Fair mask,

Slick with deception's grace.

I’ll carve a path through chaos,

With thunder in my veins, I embrace the chase,

Exposing your ashen corpse

To the condign sunlight.

I need a sip of thunder

To make these bones move again,

A shimmering shelter from the darkness

In her cold, dead eyes

(2025picturesandwords©️RolloRoberson)

“I been double-crossed now for the very last time and now I’m finally free

I kissed goodbye the howling beast on the borderline which separated you from me

You’ll never know the hurt I suffered nor the pain I rise above

And I’ll never know the same about you, your holiness or your kind of love

And it makes me feel so sorry

Idiot wind, blowing through the buttons of our coats

Blowing through the letters that we wrote

Idiot wind, blowing through the dust upon our shelves

You’re an idiot babe,

It’s a wonder you can even feed yourself.”- Bob Dylan

[novelties-and-notions]

Ode to Snowy Mountains on a Winter's Day

Oh my! Look at the snow! See how the mountains and hilltops glow When the winter sun, So cold and low, Lights them up, With shadow below.

See how those barren rocks shimmer and shine, Adorned with a mantle, so white and so fine; With crystals that twinkle And sparkle with light: By sun or by moon, It’s a wonderful sight!

Look at that sky: a hibernal blue! On a winter’s day, that azure hue – A beautiful colour – Belies the chill That freezes the ground When the wind stands still.

For the wind drops down on a frosty night, With cloudless skies, and a moon so bright That shadows fall As though it were day: Then sensible creatures Hide away

In nests and hollows as best they can, For Jack Frost cares not for beast or man: The freezing touch Of his icy hand Sends careless folk To a better land…

So heed my warning, proceed with care: For angels wait for fools who dare To tread icy ridges Without concern: Some who try Do not return.

Admire the scene, and look at the show, When the snowy mountains and hilltops glow, And the winter sun, So cold and low, Lights them up. But stay safely below!

[By A (for Alphonse) Poeticus Abysmus, the lousiest poet on the midway. It baffles science!]

[scotianostra]

July 31st 1780 saw the first edition of Robert Burns' poems, published, known commonly as "The Kilmarnock Edition."

Officially called 'Poems, Chiefly in the Scottish Dialect' Burns was still farming in Ayrshire when he had this published by local printers John Wilson who has a press in Kilmarnock, the town giving it the name most of us know it by today.

Earlier in 1786 Burns had circulated a prospectus inviting friends and patrons to subscribe to the printing of an edition of his poems. Of this first edition, 350 were paid for by subscribers and a total of only 612 were printed altogether, they sold out within a month. Only 84 are known to survive worldwide today.

The collection included what were to become some of his best-loved works including Tae a Mouse, The Cotter’s Saturday Night and The Holy Fair.

The printing of the Kilmarnock edition of his poems was a turning point in Burns' life. He abandoned his plans to emigrate to Jamaica and instead spent the next year or so in Edinburgh where he was acclaimed as a poet and welcomed in Edinburgh Society.

[lickthecowhappy]

In honour of Burns night (January 25th), please accept this Scots-ish (NOT Scottish) poem about bonnie Mr. McFell from his wee demon.

We’d gang across the misty glen My auld dear mate wi’ me Did ye ken I loved ye then My bonnie enemy

I couldae kissed ye by the crypts An’ blamed the laudanum So drouthy do ye mak my lips But gie us no a dram

The moon she dinnae show her light A’ we crossed the auld kirkyards But mony a light I saw that night When my eyes ye filt wi’ stars

Read more of my work here. This poem is also available on AO3.

[slay-me-betch]

~ On yonder hill stood a coo, It’s no’ there noo ~

William McGonagall

[kmbgpoetry]

| Whorticulture | KMBG |

9-10 August 2024

linktree

[adventuresofalgy]

Algy had volunteered to help with the preparations for his birthday party, which was going to be held on the very next day… but the wild west Highland wind was blasting from the north again, and even when he settled in the most sheltered spot he could find, Algy had a wee bit of bother…

As he struggled to control his wayward charges, Algy recalled a poem he had once read, and hoped very much that he could prevent his own balloons from breaking loose and popping…

Eight balloons no one was buyin' All broke loose one afternoon. Eight balloons with strings a-flyin', Free to do what they wanted to. One flew up to touch the sun - POP! One thought highways might be fun - POP! One took a nap in a cactus pile - POP! One stayed to play with a careless child - POP! One tried to taste some bacon fryin' - POP! One fell in love with a porcupine - POP! One looked close in a crocodile's mouth - POP! One sat around 'til his air ran out - WHOOSH! Eight balloons no one was buyin' - They broke loose and away they flew, Free to float and free to fly And free to pop where they wanted to.

[Algy is thinking of the poem for children Eight Balloons by the 20th century American writer Shel Silverstein.]

[seud-luachmhor]

[empirearchives]

Herman Melville on Napoleon’s love for Ossian

Context: Ossian is the narrator and purported author of a cycle of epic poems published by the Scottish poet James Macpherson, originally as Fingal (1761) and Temora (1763), and later combined under the title The Poems of Ossian.

“I am rejoiced to see Hazlitt speak for Ossian. There is nothing more contemptable in that contemptable man (tho' good poet, in his department) Wordsworth, than his contempt for Ossian. And nothing that more raises my idea of Napoleon than his great admiration for him.—The loneliness of the spirit of Ossian harmonized with the loneliness of the greatness of Napoleon.”

Melville wrote this around 1862 in the margins of his copy of Hazlitt’s Lectures on the English Comic Writers and Lectures on the English Poets

Source: Hershel Parker, Herman Melville: A Biography - Volume 2, p. 436