THE Elgin-born cleric-poet Andrew Young was educated in Edinburgh but spent much of his life in Sussex. He started his career as a Presbyterian minister and concluded it as a canon in the Church of England. His love of the Scottish mountains is a leitmotiv of his poetry. His Selected Poems are published by Carcanet at £9.95.

CLIMBING IN GLENCOE

The sun became a small round moon

And the scared rocks grew pale and weak

As mist surged up the col, and soon

So thickly everywhere it tossed

That though I reached the peak

With height and depth both lost

It might as well have been a plain;

Yet when, groping my way again,

On to the scree I stept

It went with me, and as I swept

Down its loose rumbling course

Balanced I rode it like a circus horse.