Poetry Pleases: Time And Tide In The Outer Hebrides
Angela Black's poems are about the depopulation of the Islands and Highlands of Scotland half a century ago. They are about ordinary people who, for generations and centuries, had lived ordinary lives as crofters, farmers and fishermen, but whose lives were about to change for ever.
1. “Seeing” the Isles
An evening in June -- and the crofter sits in the porch at his door.
Each timeless June, with timeless thoughts, like his folks before;
his gaze on the loved familiar shapes of the hills and the moor,
the curve of the bay -- long white line of surf on the shore.
Harmony breathed and felt, not “thought”; his night never drags.
The croft behind him (its roots in the turf and its massive flags,
rough-hewn stones, a part of the hills) grows out of the crags.
He shares his terrain with the untamed horse, the proud wild stags.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Down the dusty track -- it’s hardly a road -- comes coach on tour;
disgorges its load: “I declare -- that’s a crofter sitting there at his door!
But what d’yer know! there ain’t no heather on this dog-gone moor.
No souvenirs t’ show folks back home: ain’t no shells on this shore!
Still -- darn it -- we’ve seen it!” and back to the coach to “see” the Isles --
the Islands, Highlands, Borders and Ireland, the whole British Isles.
Souvenirs! and proud -- so proud of their thousands of miles;
while the man in his porch, like his folks before,
sits on. And he smiles.
2. Hebridean Lament (or: The Road from the Isles)
“They’re leaving the Isles,” the Old Man said,
“the young men away, across the seas.
The girls away, too, to get themselves wed.
We’re the last of the folk of the Hebrides.
No strong arms left now to man the fleet,
the boats are skeletons -- ribs left to rot;
and no-one to harvest the hay and the peat:
they’ll forget the white crags, the bay, the black loch.”
But the Young Man said, “No! This cannot be so.
There must always be folk of the Hebrides!
Old Man, keep the plough, the scythe, sheep and cow:
we shall always return from over the seas.”
And the girls, too, they cried in their grief and their pride,
“We must have our own folk in the Hebrides.
Old Woman, keep the loom, tend the oats and the home,
to show to our friends from over the seas.”
“Yet still,” said the Old Man, “they’re leaving the Isles
to harvest their fortunes from over the seas.
And though they return, swift covering the miles,
the Old will have died on the Hebrides.”
3. Sunset Over Taransay
(The Isle of Taransay, an island separated from South Harris by the Sound of Taransay and depopulated of its small fishing and agricultural community)
The breeze is mild on Taransay;
the sea is smooth in the luminous bay;
Caressed with warmth and wave’s soft lull,
in a path of gold, sleeps the cradled gull.
The Isle is riding the Sound and high --
with crest of crimson, between sea and sky --
hangs summer silhouette of Taransay.
Sunset over Taransay.
Storm winds now are shaking the bay;
the wild birds torn with lash of the spray,
and the molten sea an angry flame.
With flanks of foam and purple mane
the Isle is striding the Sound and high --
against flare and flash in a lowering sky --
hangs winter silhouette of Taransay.
Sunset over Taransay.
But whether fish have entered the bay,
sturdy the crops and sweet the hay;
if calm the sea and mild the air,
who’s now to know? and who’s to care?
The crofts are in ruins, and no man to say,
“Good morning friend, fine day! fine day!”
Just a distant silhouette hangs Taransay.
The sun has set on Taransay.
