We came across this volume (published 1982) in a second hand bookshop after two weeks of atrocious weather in the west finally drove us east for the third and last week of our holiday. That was back in 1993 and it's been a great source of pleasure ever since. There is something in this anthology for everyone and Brown tells us that we should "Come to it as we do to the hill, with rambling opportunism". Here is one of my favourites, written in Scots. It always make me long to be on the hill; when I reach the second last verse, it's the western hills I want, wet or not.
WINE O LIVING
Hae ye smelt the tang o heather
And the rich
pitch pine,
Or the bracken
bristled yellow wi the sun?
O the moon abune the lochan
Hae ye seen the
siller shine
Looming eerie
through the drift upon the dun?
He ye traiked it up Glen Ogle
By your lane,
sane sel?
Hae crossed the
Moor o Rannoch in the mist?
Were ye boggit to the buttocks?
Did ye hear the
eagles yell?
Were ye
frichted by the adders when they hissed?
Hae ye whupped the whurling eddies
By the brow’d,
loud linn?
Hae ye tracked
the tired buck upon the brae?
When ye crouched it in the heather
Were ye chittered
by the win?
Hae ye waukened
in the mist at skreigh o day?
An the Islands, hae ye seen em
In the wet, wet
west?
Wi the kelp
a-clinging crisp abune the tide?
Hae ye heard the girning gullies?
Seen the singing
seals at rest?
Hae ye raced
the ocean stallions when they ride?
Gin ye kenna what’s ma meaning,
Gin ye think my
havers daft,
Ach, I’d
liefer blaw ma breath upon the breeze!
Ye’ve no quaffed the quaich o Living
In a steep, deep
draught-
Never lipped
the wine o Living to the lees!
Matt Marshall
Matt Marshall
Note: If I am in breach of copyright, I'll remove this post on request.
