My Poem(s) of the Week: 'Edinburgh' and 'Scotland', both by Hugh MacDiarmid

[narya_flame]

Late - and I missed a week due to being away, but hey ho.  I was actually looking for the first of these two poems, but ran across the second while searching for it, and decided to post them both.


Edinburgh

But Edinburgh is a mad god’s dream

Fitful and dark,

Unseizable in Leith

And wildered by the Forth,

But irresistibly at last

Cleaving to sombre heights

Of passionate imagining

Till stonily,

From soaring battlements,

Earth eyes Eternity.


Scotland

It requires great love of it deeply to read

The configuration of a land,

Gradually grow conscious of fine shadings,

Of great meanings in slight symbols,

Hear at last the great voice that speaks softly,

See the swell and fall upon the flank

Of a statue carved out in a whole country’s marble,

Be like Spring, like a hand in a window

Moving New and Old things carefully to and fro,

Moving a fraction of flower here,

Placing an inch of air there,

And without breaking anything.

So I have gathered unto myself

All the loose ends of Scotland,

And by naming them and accepting them,

Loving them and identifying myself with them,

Attempt to express the whole.

Comments

[hhimring]

Beautiful!

[narya_flame]

They really are; I love both of these poems.

[elwinfortuna]

I was like "yes! that's it exactly!" at the first poem, and then the second one made me cry. I love living here so much; Scotland is my home in ways the US never was.

[narya_flame]

Aww. I know what you mean; it is home for me too!