Sweeping me with it in its drift

Running rest-day ...

... my very first 'poetry-blip' mentioned Sorley Maclean's work - and here's an excerpt from his magnificent 'Poems to Eimhir'; this translation is taken straight from the pictured 2011 collection:


Poems to Eimhir

I

Girl of the red-gold hair

Girl of the red-gold hair,
far from you, love, my pursuit;
girl of the red-gold hair,
far from you my sorrow.

Tonight on the Sound of Raasay my hand is on the helm,
the wind tugs energetically at the sail,
my heart is dumb, aching for your music,
today and tomorrow indifferent to my expectation.

Grey the mist creeping over Dun Caan,
fretful the coarse moorgrass and bog cotton,
a wind from the west touches the surface of the sea,
my hopes are gone, gloom overshadows me.

A white cleft to the bottom of the wave,
the wind skirls round the top of the mast,
but let it blow, I am indifferent,
to a battle awakening on a bare sea.

Girl of the red-gold hair,
far from you, love, my pursuit,
girl of the red-gold hair,
very far from you my sorrow.

II

Reason and Love

If our language has said that reason
is identical with love,
it is not speaking the truth.

When my eye lighted on your face
it did not show the reason in love,
I did not ask about that third part.

When I heard your voice it did not make
this division in my flesh;
it did not the first time.

But that came to me without my knowing
and it tore the root of my being,
sweeping me with it in its drift.

With all I had of apprehension
I put up a shadow of fight;
my reason struggled.

From the depths of this old wisdom
I spoke to my love:
you are not worthy of me, nor from me.

On the inside my love,
my intellect on the elegant side,
and the foolish door was broken.

And my intellect said to my love:
duality is not for us;
we mingle in love.

(May 1932)

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I really would recommend this pictured, 2011 'collected poems' volume - it is indeed, a complete treasure-trove :-)