There’s nothing here I can take into my hands.

Oh, for the plough stilts and the horse’s reins,

And the furrows running free behind me.

The clay stall clings to me here, and the heavy smell

Of peat and dung and cattle, and the taste of the dram

In my mouth, the last of all.

These things are what I was made for. Send me back.

There is not even a shadow here. How can I live

Without substance and shadow? Am I here

Because I duly read the Bible on Sundays

And drowsed through the minister’s sermon? I knew my duty.

But in the evening

I led the young lads to the orra lasses

Across the sound to the other islands. Summer!

How can I live without summer? And the harvest moon

And the stooks that looked like little yellow graves, so bonny

And sad and strange, while I walked through them

For a crack with Jock at the bothy: old-farrant stories

He had, I could tell you some queer stories. And then we would dander

Among the farms to visit the lasses, climb

Through many a window til morning. But that’s no talk

For this place. And then I think of the evenings

After the long day’s work …