A CHARMING cameo by Lewis-born Iain Crichton Smith (1928-1998), no doubt dating from his school-teaching days.

His New Collected Poems are published by Carcanet at £18.95.

TWO GIRLS SINGING

It neither was the words nor yet the tune.

Any tune would have done and any words.

Any listener or no listener at all.

As nightingales in rocks or a child crooning

in its own world of strange awakening

or larks for no reason but themselves.

So on the bus through late November running

by yellow lights tormented, darkness falling,

the two girls sang for miles and miles together

and it wasn't the words or tune. It was the singing.

It was the human sweetness in that yellow,

the unpredicted voices of our kind.