Andrew Young tramps by a Roman wall (presumably Hadrian’s) and muses how “Time like a leaf down-drops” in this powerful natural environment, haunted by history.
The Elgin-born Scottish cleric (1885-1971) started his career as a Presbyterian minister and completed it as a canon in the Church of England.
He was awarded the Queen’s Gold Medal for Poetry in 1951.
His short poems, often about birds and Scottish mountains, remain engaging for the sharpness of his vision and his sometimes quirky rhyme-schemes.
LESLEY DUNCAN
THE ROMAN WALL
Though moss and lichen crawl
These square-set stones still keep their serried ranks
Guarding the ancient wall,
That whitlow-grass with lively silver pranks.
Time they could not keep back
More than the wind that from the snow-streaked north
Taking the air for track
Flows lightly over to the south shires forth.
Each stone might be a cist
Where memory sleeps in dust and nothing tells
More than the silent mist
That smokes along the heather-blackened fells.
Twitching its ears as pink
As blushing scallops loved by Romans once
A lamb leaps to its drink
And, as the quavering cry breaks on the stones,
Time like a leaf down-drops
And pacing by the stars and thorn-trees’ sough
A Roman sentry stops
And hears the water lapping on Crag Lough.
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