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.
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