Wagtail or water winna help me here

Such a wonderful week on Lindisfarne ---

--- back in Edinburgh this morning, and here's an excerpt from one of my favourite Hugh MacDiarmid poems, taken from the pictured 1965 pamphlet ...

... and which I very recently found at Barter Books as we passed Alnwick :-)

Pure poetic genius:


By Wauchopeside

For civilisation in its struggle up
Has mair than seasonal change o' ideas,
Glidin' through periods o' flo'oers and fruit,
Winter and Spring again; to cope wi' these
Is difficult eneuch to tax the patience
O' Methuselah himsel' --- but transformations,
Yont physical and mental habits, symbols, rites,
That mak' sic changes nane, are aye gaen on,
Revolutions in the dynasty o' live ideals
--- The stuff wi' which alane true poetry deals.
Wagtail or water winna help me here,
(That's clearer than Wauchope at its clearest's clear!)
Where the life o' a million years is seen
Like a louch look in a lass's een.

---

Hugh MacDiarmid (1892 - 1978)

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