Mukkil Toun Thocht

Mukkil Toun Thocht
Peter D Wright

Hugh MacDiarmid

Click here to listen to this in Real Audio read by Peter D Wright

Fir ma guid fier Sandy Marshall

Sittin ae nicht i the Crown Inn

I the Mukkil Toun o the Lang Holm,

Abune the din o fremmit musick

A listened til the crack o the fowk.

A wunnert, as A suppit the baurley-bree,

Whaur genius cums frae til ma-sel -

This is whaur MacDiarmid wis born,

Cuid we see his lyke agane the day?

Na - aince was a marakil.

The day it wad neid faur mair.

5 July 2003

Footnote : Christopher Murray Grieve was born in Langholm on 11 August 1892. As the poet Hugh MacDiarmid he launched the Scottish Literary Revival and was the greatest Scottish poet of the 20th century . His masterpiece in Scots, 'A Drunk Man Looks At The Thistle' was published in 1926. Hugh MacDiarmid was a founder member of The National Party of Scotland in 1928 - the fore-runner of The Scottish National Party. He died in Edinburgh on 9 September 1978.