1. |
The Moment
03:10
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THE MOMENT by William Soutar
Between the crowing of the cock
Love is fulfilled and is forlorn:
Between the clicking of the clock
A star dies and a star is born.
Between the beating of the breast
Love is fulfilled and is forlorn:
Between the wave and the wave-crest
Is meeting and is no return.
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2. |
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IMPROMPTU IN AN EREMITIC MOOD by William Soutar
I am William who would harken
For the small and stilly voice;
But the breezy bodies come and go
In love with their own noise;
Yet I try to be a Christian
And salute the bugling words
Though I envy gardener Adam
When his brothers were the birds.
I share matrimonial sagas
And the tricks of all the trades;
The soliloquies of parsons;
The confessions of old-maids:
Yet I try to be a Christian
And indulge the rigmarole;
Though I envy Luke the lazar
Who was lifted from his hole.
Ah! forgive me, fellow creatures,
If I mock when you are gone;
And if sometimes at life’s concert
I would rather sit alone:
Yet I try to be a Christian
And applaud the tootling talk;
Though I envy paralytics
Who take up their beds and walk.
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3. |
Grief
03:19
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GRIEF by William Soutar
About our grief is ever wound
A pitying comfort for our loss:
Let it not root: it is a moss
Which cankers love should it abound.
The wintry bareness of a tree
Is wisdom for the mind that grieves:
The scars upon the wood are leaves
Remembered, and are leaves to be.
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4. |
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RECOLLECTION OF FIRST LOVE by William Soutar
When I recall your form and face
More than you I recall
To come into a meeting-place
Where no leaves fall:
The years walk round this secret garth
But cannot change its guarded earth.
I have known women fonder far
Than you; more fair, more kind:
Women whose passionate faces are
Flowers in the mind:
But as a tall tree, stem on stem,
Your presence overshadows them.
They quicken from my sentient day
And stir my body’s need;
But you had fixéd roots ere they
Down-dropped in seed:
They can but copy all I found
When you alone grew in this ground.
You are reborn from changeless loam
And are a changeless shade:
Your feet had paced the paths to Rome
Ere Rome was made:
Under your eyes great towers down fell
Before that Trojan citadel.
Time, who is knocking at the gate,
Cannot make you his boast:
Our garden shall be desolate
But you – a ghost
Timeless; as beauty’s timeless norm
You are in passion and in form.
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5. |
The Earth Abides
03:29
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THE EA RTH ABIDES by William Soutar
When our loud days are chronicles
Of rancour and revenge
Whoever walks upon these hills
Shall not remember change.
He shall be moulded by their mood:
Their granite and their grass
Through secret ways of sense and blood
Into his life will pass.
And he shall love his native land;
And still an exile be
If in its name he lift a hand
To smite an enemy.
And he shall look upon the sun
And see his ensign there
If earth belong to all, and none;
Gifted as light and air.
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6. |
The Unicorn
04:03
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THE UNICORN by William Soutar
When from the dark the day is born
Life’s glory walks in white:
Upon the hills the unicorn
Glitters for mortal sight.
Out of their dream the hunters wake
With brightness in their eyes:
The foolish hurry forth to take,
But gently go the wise.
They only are the wise who claim
This for their foolishness:
To love the beast they cannot tame
Yet cheer the unending chase.
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7. |
The Tryst
02:39
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THE TRYST by William Soutar
O luely, luely, cam she in
And luely she lay doun:
I kent her be her caller lips
And her breists sae sma’ and roun’.
A’ thru the nicht we spak nae word
Nor sinder’d bane frae bane:
A’ thru the nicht I heard her hert
Gang soundin’ wi’ my ain.
It was about the waukrife hour
When cocks begin to craw
That she smool’d saftly thru the mirk
Afore the day wud daw.
Sae luely, luely, cam she in
Sae luely was she gaen
And wi’ her a’ my simmer days
Like they had never been.
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8. |
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THE SORROW OF THE SPECTRES by William Soutar
Wandering within the memory of a world
Two shadows met; two shapes, which had been men,
Untimely sundered from the broken flesh
By battle; ghosted while yet their blood
Was feverous with the arrogance of faith
And darkened by the ignorance of hate.
Now, beyond passion, beyond bitterness,
Beyond coercion they had met again
Each recognising in a former foe
The spectre of his mutilated youth.
“Brother!” they cried and sought to hide their scars
With unsubstantial hands. “Brother!” they cried:
“This murdered life is our inheritance
And this, alas, the world for which we died.”
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9. |
The Butterfly
03:01
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THE BUTTERFLY
When on the open hand
Wings in the sunlight stay
Who are so wise as understand
The gift of transiency?
To be content and trust
The momentary bliss?
Alas! The little drift of dust.
Upon our happiness.
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10. |
Parable
04:26
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PARABLE by William Soutar
Two neighbours, who were rather dense,
Considered that their mutual fence
Were more symbolic of their peace
(Which they maintained should never cease)
If each about his home and garden
Set up a more substantial warden.
Quickly they cleared away the fence
To build a wall at great expense;
And soon their little plots of ground
Were barricaded all around:
Yet still they added stone to stone,
As if they would never be done,
For when one neighbour seemed to tire
The other shouted: Higher! Higher!
Thus day by day, in their unease,
They built the battlements of peace
Whose shadows, like a gathering blot,
Darkened on each neglected plot,
Until the ground, so overcast,
Became a rank and weedy waste.
Now in their obsession, they uprear;
Jealous, and proud, and full of fear:
And, lest they halt for lack of stone,
They pull their dwelling-houses down.
At last, by their insane excess,
Their ramparts guard a wilderness;
And hate, arousing out of shame,
Flares up into a wondrous flame:
They curse; they strike; they break the wall,
Which buries them beneath its fall.
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11. |
Auld Sang
02:58
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AUL D SANG
I brocht my love a cherry
That hadna onie stane:
I brocht my love a birdie
That hadne onie bane:
I brocht my love a wauchtie
That wasna sour nor sweet:
I brocht my love a bairnie
That didna girn nor greet.
The cherry that I gien him
Was flauntin in the fleur:
The birdie that I taen him
Was nested no an hour:
The wauchtie that I socht him
Cam glintin frae the grund:
The bairnie that I brocht him
Had lang been sleepin sound.
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12. |
Winter Song
03:33
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WINTER SONG by William Soutar
Let me remember when the frost
Is white upon the stem
Those colours which the year has lost,
Those flowers arrayed in them.
Let me recall when snow is hung
Along the iron bough
Those variegated birds which sung,
And in the heart sing now.
And let me not forget, when ice
Is paved above the pool,
The swan which moved with her device
Sun-clear and summer-cool.
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13. |
Scotland
03:46
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SCOTLAND by William Soutar
Atween the world o’ licht
And the world that is to be
A man wi’ unco sicht
Sees whaur he canna see:
Gangs whaur he canna walk:
Recks whaur he canna read:
Hauds what he canna tak:
Mells wi’ the unborn dead.
Atween the world o’ licht
And the world that is to be
A man wi’ unco sicht
Monie a saul maun see:
Sauls that are stark and nesh:
Sauls that wud dree the day:
Sauls that are fain for flesh
But canna win the wey.
Hae ye the unco sicht
That sees atween and atween
This world that lowes in licht:
Yon world that hasna been?
It is owre late for fear,
Owre early for disclaim;
Whan ye come hameless here
And ken ye are at hame.
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14. |
Crocus
04:56
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CROCUS by William Soutar
Out of the dark:
Bright as a butterfly’s wing;
Bright as a still flame;
Out of the dark:
Silence that can sing;
Life’s banner on a stem;
Earth, with a coloured cry,
Shouting Hark! Hark!
To the wondering eye.
Thirsty the soul
For loveliness, for mirth,
For worship, hope:
Thirsty the soul;
And, lo, from common earth
Life’s mercy lifted up;
Here in a cup golden, glowing,
Lifted up for all;
Overflowing, overflowing
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15. |
I Lang to Gie Mysel'
03:04
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I LANG TO GIE MY SEL ’ by William Soutar
I hae nae bairn to gie his bairn my name:
Faither and mither and nae fere I claim:
Dead to the dead I am:
Dead to the dead I am.
Like ilka man I am a mystery:
A lanely sea-bird owre a landless sea:
A gleed sae süne blawn by:
A gleed sae süne blawn by.
And in my laneliness nae ease I win:
I lang to gie mysel’ to a’ mankin’;
That I micht be their ain:
That I micht be their ain.
I wud be nae mair loveless; I wud gang
Hale in the herts o’ a’: this is my sang;
My sorrow and my sang:
My sorrow and my sang.
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16. |
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HE WHO WEEPS FOR BEAUTY GONE by William Soutar
He who weeps for beauty gone
Hangs about his neck a stone.
He who mourns for his lost youth
Daily digs a grave for truth.
He who prays for happy hours
Tramples upon earthly flowers.
He who asks an oath from love
Doth thereby his folly prove.
Mourn not overmuch nor stress
After love or happiness.
He who weeps for beauty gone
Stoops to pluck a flower of stone.
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17. |
The Greeting Bairnie
02:16
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THE GREET IN BAIRNIE by William Soutar
Sic a greetin bairnie,
Sic a bruckit face,
Ye maunna be sae girnie
In they bricht, braw days.
Licht is lowpin owre ye;
Gowks lauch frae the wüd;
Fleurs dance on afore ye;
A’ the world is gled.
Gin the sün were sumphie
There wud aye be nicht:
Gin the müne were grumphie
There wud be nae licht.
Sic a greetin bairnie,
Sic a bruckit face,
Ye maunna be sae girnie
In they bricht, braw days.
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18. |
Ballad
03:16
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BALLA D by William Soutar
Far in the nicht whan faint the müne
My love knock’t at the door:
He spak nae word as he walkit in,
And wi’ nae sound stepp’t owre.
White was his face in the thin licht,
And white his hands and feet:
Like snaw, that in itsel is bricht,
White was his windin-sheet.
He look’t on me wi’ sichtless e’en,
And yet his e’en were kind:
And a’ the joys that we had taen
Thrang’d up into my mind.
And for the whilie he was near,
Glimmerin in the gloom,
I thocht the hale o’ the world was there
Sae sma’ in a sma’ room.
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Debra Salem Perth, UK
Singer/songwriter with a distinct vocal tone that has grown out of both jazz and folk traditions.
Originally from Belfast, she now lives and works in Scotland.
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