YESTERDAY'S poet, Alexander Scott, wrote the biography of another fine poet, the Perth-based William Soutar (1898-1943).

After conscription into the Royal Navy in 1916, Soutar studied English at Edinburgh University, but was confined to bed by ill-health for the last 13 years of his life. His poetry, in Scots and English, ranges from the lyrical to the harsh. The reflection, below, offers a quiet coda to our Remembrance sequence.

THE PERMANENCE OF THE YOUNG MEN

No man outlives the grief of war

Though he outlive its wreck:

Upon the memory a scar

Through all his years will ache.

Hopes will revive when horrors cease;

And dreaming dread be stilled;

But there shall dwell within his peace

A sadness unannulled.

Upon his world shall hang a sign

Which summer cannot hide:

The permanence of the young men

Wo are not by his side.