our essential nature ...

Couldn't quite believe my luck when I recently found this pristine copy of the 1956 edition of the combined 'Stony Limits' and 'Scots Unbound' by Hugh MacDiarmid ...

... the volume has a plain red cover, so the snap is of the inside-page; and here's a short poem from 'Stony Limits':


In the Foggy Twilight

I lay in the foggy twilight
In a hollow o' hills and saw
Moisture getherin' slowly on the heather cowes
In drops no' quite heavy eneuch to fa'.

And I kent I was still like that
Wi' the spirit o' God, alas ! ;
Lyin' in wait in vain for a single grey drop
To quicken into perfect quidditas.

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Hugh MacDiarmid (1892 – 1978)

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