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.