WRITING in English, the Perth poet William Soutar reflects on the consolations of nature - and the limitations thereof (from Into a Room, his Selected Poems edited and with an introduction by Carl MacDougall and Douglas Gifford (Argyll Publishing, £7.99).

BEYOND LOVELINESS

High on the hillside,

Where the rough track enters the wood,

I sat in the sun:

The noonday silence, like an earthy mood

Over and about me,

Wove through the sense with the warm smell of grass.

I was content; and forgot to brood

Forgetting my own mind:

'Earth's beauty is enough,' I said:

'And I at one, within this solitude,

Sharing a sunny stillness

Which lingers as a wind

Between the branches of the blood.'

And it was then that an old man trudged by

Bearing his pack of sticks:

He had no eye for nature; and his track

Was downward to the town:

With him my thought went down

As I was minded of man's misery,

And that the way he journeyed was my own.