flowers of the tormentil shining

I mentioned yesterday that I'd recently been given both volumes of Hugh MacDiarmid's complete poems (1985 paperback edition/s) at Christmas ...

... and, here is an excerpt from the *very* long Direadh poem(s), which focuses on Scotland, as taken from Volume 2 of the pictured, collected poems.

The Direadh (I/II/III) poems were first published in 1974, just a few years before MacDiarmid's death.


'Scotland small?'
from Direadh I

Scotland small? Our multiform, our infinite Scotland small?
Only as a patch of hillside may be a cliché corner
To a fool who cries ‘Nothing but heather!’ where in September another
Sitting there and resting and gazing around
Sees not only the heather but blaeberries
With bright green leaves and leaves already turned scarlet,
Hiding ripe blue berries; and amongst the sage-green leaves
Of the bog-myrtle the golden flowers of the tormentil shining;
And on the small bare places, where the little Blackface sheep
Found grazing, milkworts blue as summer skies;
And down in neglected peat-hags, not worked
Within living memory, sphagnum moss in pastel shades
Of yellow, green, and pink; sundew and butterwort
Waiting with wide-open sticky leaves for their tiny winged prey;
And nodding harebells vying in their colour
With the blue butterflies that poise themselves delicately upon them;
And stunted rowans with harsh dry leaves of glorious colour.
‘Nothing but heather!’ ̶ How marvellously descriptive! And incomplete!

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Hugh MacDiarmid (1892 - 1978)

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