Blackbird

Hamnavoe Women and the Warbeth Bell : Midwinter

One said : ' I thought I heard on the stone a midnight keel'
( It was the Yuletide bell . )

One said : ' so cold! I heard the chain of ice in the burn.'
(The bell unleashed its tongue, Christ is born . )

One said, ' a bairn, surely, a cry at the sea wall. '
( Through their salt sleep the bronze echoes fell. )

One said, ' a wave broke, white on black, far out, on the Breckness Rock
( the bronze reeled and brimmed with another stroke . )

One said, ' I dreamed an angel stood at our door '
( Brightness on Brightness unfurled through the bleak air )

One said, ' Five fish on my hungry doorstep I found. '
( There are waverings deeper than sound. )

One cried, ' I baked two sun-cakes on my hearth. '
( Gloria, cried the bell to the village and all the earth . )

George Mackay Brown