Letters from America

Whatever Scotland is to me
Be it aye pairt o’ a’ men see
O’ Earth and o’ Eternity

Wha winna hide their heids in’t till
It seems the haill o’ Space to fill
As ‘twere an unsurmounted hill.

He canna Scotland see wha yet
Canna see the Infinite
And Scotland in true scale to it.

	From “A Drunk Man Looks at the Thistle”, Hugh MacDiarmid

The south and the west looked on and the moon came
When the wind went down and the sea was sorry
And the singing slow.

Ask how the sunset looked between the wind going
Down and the moon coming up and I would struggle
To tell the how of it.

I give you fire here, I give you water, I give you
The wind that blew them across and across
The scooping mixing wind.


       From “How Yesterday Looked”, Carl Sandburg