THE distinguished academic and bilingual Gaelic poet Derick Thomson (1921-2012) held the Chair of Celtic at Glasgow University for 28 years.

This poem - about the unattainability of dreams and aspirations - exists in both Gaelic and English versions by Thomson himself.

THE SECOND ISLAND

When we reached the island

it was evening

and we were at peace,

the sun lying down

under the sea's quilt

and the dream beginning anew.

But in the morning

we tossed the cover aside

and in that white light

saw a loch in the island

and an island in the loch,

and we recognised

that the dream had moved away from us again.

The stepping stones are chancy

to the second island,

the stone totters

that guards the berries,

the rowan withers,

we have lost now the scent of the honeysuckle.