... and the sun and the rain are flying

Running rest-day.

Over the years, I've really enjoyed this pictured Poetry-collection - it was first published in 1980 and I thought Robert Louis Stevenson's poem about the Pentland Hills (especially the first line!) was appropriate for tonight's weather ...


To S R Crockett
(the Pentland Hills)

Blows the wind to-day, and the sun and the rain are flying,
Blows the wind on the moors to-day and now,
Where about the graves of the martyrs the whaups are crying,
My heart remembers how!

Grey recumbent tombs of the dead in desert places,
Standing Stones on the vacant wine-red moor,
Hills of sheep, and the howes of the silent vanished races,
And winds, austere and pure!

Be it granted me to behold you again in dying,
Hills of home! and to hear again the call;
Hear about the graves of the martyrs the peewees crying;
And hear no more at all.


... for those not in Edinburgh - there is the most almighty thunder-and-lightning storm underway at the moment!