61 replies to this topic

[notanimby]

I've been lookin furra poem called sumthin like

(the) flower(s) of Scotland

I thought it wiz by Edwin Morgan, but ah cannae find it anywhere
The last time I remember seeing it wiz in a school text book aboot poems, published back in aroon 1978ish

[tig]

All the names I know from nurse:
Gardener's garters, Shepherd's purse,
Bachelor's buttons, Lady's smock,
And the Lady Hollyhock.

Fairy places, fairy things,
Fairy woods where the wild bee wings,
Tiny trees for tiny dames --
These must all be fairy names!

Tiny woods below whose boughs
Shady fairies weave a house;
Tiny tree-tops, rose or thyme,
Where the braver fairies climb!

Fair are grown-up people's trees,
But the fairest woods are these;
Where, if I were not so tall,
I should live for good and all.

Robert Louis Stevenson

but edwin morgan did have one called "the flowers of scotland"

ill see if i can find it

Edit: found it here

[tig]

The Flowers of Scotland by Edwin Morgan

Yes, it is too cold in Scotland for flower people; in any case who would be handed a thistle?
What are our flowers? Locked swings and private rivers -
and the island of Staff for sale in the open market, which no one questions or thinks strange -
and lads o' pairts that run to London and Buffalo without a backward look while their elders say Who'd blame them -
and bonny fechters kneedeep in dead ducks with all the thrawn intentness of the incorrigible professional Scot -
and a Kirk Assembly that excels itself in the bad old rhetoric and tries to stamp out every glow of charity and change, most wrong when it thinks most loudly it is right -
and a Scottish National Party that refuses to discuss Vietnam and is even applauded for doing so, do they think no lesson is to be learned from what is going on there? -
and the unholy power of the Grouse-moor and Broad-acres to prevent the smoke of useful industry from sullying Invergordon or setting up linear cities among the whaups -
and the banning of Beardsley and Joyce but not of course of 'Monster on the Campus' or 'Curse of the Undead' - those who think the former are more degrading, what are their values? -
and the steady creep of the preservationist societies, wearing their pens out for slums with good leaded lights - if they could buy all the amber in the Baltic and melt it over Edinburgh would they be happy then? - the skeleton is well-proportioned -
and by contrast the massive indifference to the slow death of the Clyde estuary, decline of resorts, loss of steamers, anaemia of yachting, cancer of monstrous installations of a foreign power and an acquiescent government - what is the smell of death on a child's spade, any more than rats to leaded lights? -
and dissidence crying in the wilderness to a moor of boulders and two ospreys -
these are the flowers of Scotland

[notanimby]

The Flowers of Scotland by Edwin Morgan

Yes, it is too cold in Scotland for flower people; in any case who would be handed a thistle?
What are our flowers? Locked swings and private rivers -
and the island of Staff for sale in the open market, which no one questions or thinks strange -
and lads o' pairts that run to London and Buffalo without a backward look while their elders say Who'd blame them -
and bonny fechters kneedeep in dead ducks with all the thrawn intentness of the incorrigible professional Scot -
and a Kirk Assembly that excels itself in the bad old rhetoric and tries to stamp out every glow of charity and change, most wrong when it thinks most loudly it is right -
and a Scottish National Party that refuses to discuss Vietnam and is even applauded for doing so, do they think no lesson is to be learned from what is going on there? -
and the unholy power of the Grouse-moor and Broad-acres to prevent the smoke of useful industry from sullying Invergordon or setting up linear cities among the whaups -
and the banning of Beardsley and Joyce but not of course of 'Monster on the Campus' or 'Curse of the Undead' - those who think the former are more degrading, what are their values? -
and the steady creep of the preservationist societies, wearing their pens out for slums with good leaded lights - if they could buy all the amber in the Baltic and melt it over Edinburgh would they be happy then? - the skeleton is well-proportioned -
and by contrast the massive indifference to the slow death of the Clyde estuary, decline of resorts, loss of steamers, anaemia of yachting, cancer of monstrous installations of a foreign power and an acquiescent government - what is the smell of death on a child's spade, any more than rats to leaded lights? -
and dissidence crying in the wilderness to a moor of boulders and two ospreys -
these are the flowers of Scotland

The very chap........................thanks

Noo dae ye kno wwher I could purchase it ur ra name of a book that it's in that I could swipe frae ra library or when Lynnski's back is turned

[ozneil]

Caledonia


Caledonia! thou land of the mountain and rock,
Of the ocean, the mist, and the wind-
Thou land of the torrent, the pine, and the oak,
Of the roebuck, the hart, and the hind;
Though bare are thy cliffs, and though barren thy glens,
Though bleak thy dun islands appear,
Yet kind are the hearts, and undaunted the clans,
That roam on these mountains so drear!

A foe from abroad, or a tyrant at home,
Could never thy ardour restrain;
The marshall'd array of imperial Rome
Essay'd thy proud spirit in vain!
Firm seat of religion, of valour, of truth,
Of genius unshackled and free,
The muses have left all the vales of the south,
My loved Caledonia, for thee!

Sweet land of the bay and wild-winding deeps
Where loveliness slumbers at even,
While far in the depth of the blue water sleeps
A calm little motionless heaven!
Thou land of the valley, the moor, and the hill,
Of the storm and the proud rolling wave-
Yes, thou art the land of fair liberty still,
And the land of my forefathers' grave!

James Hogg

[ozneil]

And now for something completely different!



There was movement at the station, for the word had passed around
That the colt from old Regret had got away,
And had joined the wild bush horses - he was worth a thousand pound,
So all the cracks had gathered to the fray.
All the tried and noted riders from the stations near and far
Had mustered at the homestead overnight,
For the bushmen love hard riding where the wild bush horses are,
And the stock-horse snuffs the battle with delight.

There was Harrison, who made his pile when Pardon won the cup,
The old man with his hair as white as snow;
But few could ride beside him when his blood was fairly up-
He would go wherever horse and man could go.
And Clancy of the Overflow came down to lend a hand,
No better horseman ever held the reins;
For never horse could throw him while the saddle girths would stand,
He learnt to ride while droving on the plains.

And one was there, a stripling on a small and weedy beast,
He was something like a racehorse undersized,
With a touch of Timor pony - three parts thoroughbred at least -
And such as are by mountain horsemen prized.
He was hard and tough and wiry - just the sort that won't say die -
There was courage in his quick impatient tread;
And he bore the badge of gameness in his bright and fiery eye,
And the proud and lofty carriage of his head.

But so slight and weedy, one would doubt his power to stay,
And the old man said, "That horse will never do
For a long and tiring gallop-lad, you'd better stop away,
Those hills are far too rough for such as you."
So he waited sad and wistful - only Clancy stood his friend -
"I think we ought to let him come," he said;
"I warrant he'll be with us when he's wanted at the end,
For both his horse and he are mountain bred."

"He hails from Snowy River, up by Kosciusko's side,
Where the hills are twice as steep and twice as rough,
Where a horse's hoofs strike firelight from the flint stones every stride,
The man that holds his own is good enough.
And the Snowy River riders on the mountains make their home,
Where the river runs those giant hills between;
I have seen full many horsemen since I first commenced to roam,
But nowhere yet such horsemen have I seen."

So he went - they found the horses by the big mimosa clump -
They raced away towards the mountain's brow,
And the old man gave his orders, "Boys, go at them from the jump,
No use to try for fancy riding now.
And, Clancy, you must wheel them, try and wheel them to the right.
Ride boldly, lad, and never fear the spills,
For never yet was rider that could keep the mob in sight,
If once they gain the shelter of those hills."

So Clancy rode to wheel them - he was racing on the wing
Where the best and boldest riders take their place,
And he raced his stockhorse past them, and he made the ranges ring
With stockwhip, as he met them face to face.
Then they halted for a moment, while he swung the dreaded lash,
But they saw their well-loved mountain full in view,
And they charged beneath the stockwhip with a sharp and sudden dash,
And off into the mountain scrub they flew.

Then fast the horsemen followed, where the gorges deep and black
Resounded to the thunder of their tread,
And the stockwhips woke the echoes, and they fiercely answered back
From cliffs and crags that beetled overhead.
And upward, ever upward, the wild horses held their sway,
Were mountain ash and kurrajong grew wide;
And the old man muttered fiercely, "We may bid the mob good day,
No man can hold them down the other side."

When they reached the mountain's summit, even Clancy took a pull,
It well might make the boldest hold their breath,
The wild hop scrub grew thickly, and the hidden ground was full
Of wombat holes, and any slip was death.
But the man from Snowy River let the pony have his head,
And he swung his stockwhip round and gave a cheer,
And he raced him down the mountain like a torrent down its bed,
While the others stood and watched in very fear.

He sent the flint stones flying, but the pony kept his feet,
He cleared the fallen timbers in his stride,
And the man from Snowy River never shifted in his seat -
It was grand to see that mountain horseman ride.
Through the stringybarks and saplings, on the rough and broken ground,
Down the hillside at a racing pace he went;
And he never drew the bridle till he landed safe and sound,
At the bottom of that terrible descent.

He was right among the horses as they climbed the further hill
And the watchers on the mountain standing mute,
Saw him ply the stockwhip fiercely, he was right among them still,
As he raced across the clearing in pursuit.

Then they lost him for a moment, where two mountain gullies met
In the ranges, but a final glimpse reveals
On a dim and distant hillside the wild horses racing yet,
With the man from Snowy River at their heels.

And he ran them single-handed till their sides were white with foam.
He followed like a bloodhound in their track,
Till they halted cowed and beaten, then he turned their heads for home,
And alone and unassisted brought them back.
But his hardy mountain pony he could scarcely raise a trot,
He was blood from hip to shoulder from the spur;
But his pluck was still undaunted, and his courage fiery hot,
For never yet was mountain horse a cur.

And down by Kosciusko, where the pine-clad ridges raise
Their torn and rugged battlements on high,
Where the air is clear as crystal, and the white stars fairly blaze
At midnight in the cold and frosty sky,
And where around The Overflow the reed beds sweep and sway
To the breezes, and the rolling plains are wide,
The man from Snowy River is a household word today,
And the stockmen tell the story of his ride.

[Pat]

Who wrote that one, Oz?

[Hamsterbert]

The very chap........................thanks

Noo dae ye kno wwher I could purchase it ur ra name of a book that it's in that I could swipe frae ra library or when Lynnski's back is turned

This sounds like a book you want to swipe.

Collected Poems
is the title of the widest ranging collection; whatever poem you're looking for: in Collected Poems you are bound to find it (!) since this volume reprints most important collections and sequences along with some 50 afore unpublished poems.
It was published by Carcanet Press, Manchester in 1990, and is still available directly at Carcanet Press Ltd., or in any bookshop or online bookshop.

...

It does include "The Flowers of Scotland".

[notanimby]

This sounds like a book you want to swipe.



It does include "The Flowers of Scotland".

Cheers
Noo diz anywan know if Lynnski's huz it in stock?

[samscafeamericain]

With the exception of Mr Burns, you scots are not what you would call 'big' on poets.

Now if you listen very carefully children, you can hear the call of the Lesser Spotted Sweeping Generalisation

[ozneil]

Who wrote that one, Oz?

A B (Banjo) Patterson also wrote Waltzing Matilda

[notanimby]

With the exception of Mr Burns, you scots are not what you would call 'big' on poets.

Thankfully the divine Mrs Logan is still very much alive and kicking.

Yoo obvyusly huvnae read any Walter McCorrisken

[notanimby]

And.
Instead of trying to be funny and failing, why not give me a list.


I'll see your Scots poets and I'll raise you my Irish poets.
As for writers, have you got a first 11?
Come on enlighten me.

John Buchan
Dorothy Dunnett

Neil Gunn
George MacDonald Fraser
Robert Louis Stevenson
Sir Walter Scott
F Marian McNeill
Finlay J. Macdonald
Sir Compton Mackenzie
Lewis Grassic Gibbon
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
Kenneth Graham
James Herriot
James Boswell
j.m. Barrie


Therz 13 tae be goin on way.....................................

[notanimby]

Indeed not.
Going to tell me about him?

Ah know ye kin google, jist dae that and you'll find oot plenty