THE GLEN’S MUSTER ROLL
Symon, Mary
Published 1955
Hing’t up aside the chumley-cheek, the aul’ glen’s Muster Roll,
A’ names we ken fae hut an’ ha’, fae Penang to the Pole,
An’ speir na gin I’m prood o’t — Losh! coont them line by line,
Near han’ a hunner fechtin’ men, an’ they a’ were Loons 0” Mine.
A’ mine. It’s jest like yesterday they sat there raw on raw,
Some tchyauvin’ wi’ the ‘Rule 0’ Three,’ some widin’ throw ‘Mensa’:
The Map o’ Asia’s shoggly yet faur Dysie’s sheemach head
Gied cleeter-clatter a’ the time the carritches was said.
‘A limb,” his greetin’ granny swore, ‘the aul’ deil’s very limb’ —
But Dysie’s dead an’ drooned lang syne; the Cressy coffined him.
‘Man guns upon the fore barbette!’ . . . What’s that to me an’ you?
Here’s moss an’ burn, the skailin’ kirk, aul’ Kissach beddin’s soo.
It’s Peace, it’s Hame, — but ower the Ben the coastal searchlights shine,
And we ken that Britain’s bastions mean — that sailor Loon o’ Mine.
The muirlan’s lang, the muirlan’s wide, an’ fa says ‘ships’ or ‘sea’?
But the tang o’ saut that’s in wir bleed has puzzled mair than me.
There’s Sandy wi’ the birstled shins, faur think ye’s he the day?
Oot where the hawser’s tuggin’ taut in the surf 0’ Suvla Bay;
An’ ower the spurs o’ Chanak Bahr gied twa lang, stilpert chiels
I think o’ flappin’ butteries yet, or weyvin’ powets’ creels —
Exiles on far Australian plains, but the Lord’s ain boomerang
*S the Highland heart that’s aye for hame hooever far it gang.
An’ the winds that wail ower Anzac an’ requiem Lone Pine
Are nae jest a’ for stranger kin, for some were Loons 0” Mine.
They’re comin’ hame in twas an’ threes: there’s Tam fae Singapore —
Yon’s his, the string o’ buckie-beads abeen the aumry door —
An’ Dick Macleod, his sanshach sel’ (Guid sake, a bombardier!)
I see them yet ae summer day come hodgin’ but the fleer:
‘Please, sir’ (a habber an’ a hoast) — ‘Please, sir’ (a gasp, a gulp,
Syne wi’ a rush) ‘Please — sir — can — we — win — oot — to — droon — afulp?
wee thi Rover, here lad! — ay, that’s him, the fulp they didna droon,
But Tam — puir Tam lies cauld an’ stiff on some gray Belgian dune;
An’ the Via Dolorosa’s there, faur a wee bit cutty quine
Stan’s lookin’ doon a teem hill-road for a sojer Loon o’ Mine.
Fa’s neist? The Gaup — a Gordon wi’ the ‘Bydand’ on his broo,
Nae murlacks dreetlin’ fae his pooch, or roon the weeks o’s mou’,
Nae word o’ groff-write trackies on the ‘Four best ways to fooge’ —
He steed his grun’ an’ something mair, they tell me, oot at Hooge.
But ower the dyke I’m hearin’ yet: ‘Lads, fa’s on for a swap?
A lang sook o’ a pandrop for the sense 0’ ‘verbum sap’.
Fack’s death I tried to min’ on’t — here’s my gairten wi’ the knot -
But — bizz! — a dhabrack loupet as I passed the muckle pot.’
Ay, ye didna ken the classics, never heard o’ a co-sine,
But here’s my aul lum’ aff to ye, dear gowket Loon o’ Mine.
They’re handin’ oot the halos, an’ three’s come to the glen —
There’s Jeemack taen his Sam Browne to his mither’s but an’ ben.
Ay, they ca’ me ‘Blawin’ Beelie,’ but I never crawed sae crouse
As the day they ga’ the V.C. to my filius nullius.
But he winna sit ‘Receptions,’ nor keep on his aureole,
A’ he says is, ‘Cut the blether, an’ rax ower the Bogie Roll’.
An’ the Duke an’s dother shook his han’ an’ speirt aboot his kin,
‘Old family, yes: here sin’ the Flood,’ I smairtly chippet in,
(Fiech! Noah’s? Na — We’d ane wirsels, ye ken, in °29).
I’m nae the man to stan’ an’ hear them lichtlie Loon o’ Mine.
Wir Lairdie. That’s his mither in her doo’s-neck silk gaun’ by,
The podduck, sae she tells me, ’s haudin’ up the H.L.I.
An’ he’s stan’in ower his middle in the Flanders clort an’ dub —
Him ’at eese’t to scent his hanky an’ speak o’s mornin’ ‘tub’.
The Manse Loon’s dellin’ divots on the weary road to Lille,
An’ he canna flype his stockin’s, cause they hinna tae nor heel.
Sennelager’s gotten Davie — a’ mou’ fae lug to lug —
An’ the Kaiser’s kyaak, he’s writin’, ’ll neither ryve nor rug.
‘But mind ye’ (so he post-cairds) ‘I’m already ower the Rhine.’
Ay, there’s nae a wanworth o’ them, though they werena Loons o’ Mine.
. . . You — Robbie. Memory pictures: Front bench. A curly pow,
A chappet hannie grippin’ ticht a Homer men’t wi’ tow —
The lave a’ scrammelin’ near him like bummies roon a bike,
‘Fat’s this?’ ‘Fat’s that?’ He’d tell them a’ — ay, speir they fat they like,
My hill-foot lad! A’ sowl an’ brain fae’s bonnet to his beets,
A ‘Fullarton’ in posse — nae the first fun’ fowin’ peats.
An’ I see a blythe young Bajan gang whistlin’ doon the brae,
An’ I hear a wistful Paladin his patriot Credo say.
An’ noo, an’ noo I’m waitin’ till a puir thing hirples hame —
Ay ’t ’s the Valley o’ the Shadow, nae the mountain heichts o’ Fame.
An’ where’s the nimble nostrum, the dogma fair an’ fine,
To still the ruggin’ heart I hae for you, oh Loon o’ Mine?
My Loons, my Loons! Yon winnock gets the settin’ sun the same,
Here’s sklates an’ skailies, ilka dask a’ futtled wi’ a name.
An’ as I sit a vision comes: Ye’re troopin’ in aince mair,
Ye’re back fae Aisne an’ Marne an’ Meuse, Ypres an’ Festubert;
Ye’re back on weary, bleedin’ feet — you, you that danced an’ ran —
For every lauchin’ loon I kent I see a hell-scarred man.
Not mine but yours to question now! You lift unhappy eyes —
‘Ah, Maister, tell’s fat a’ this means.’ And I, ye thocht sae wise,
Maun answer wi’ the bairn words ye said to me langsyne:
‘I dinna ken, I dinna ken,’ Fa does, oh Loons 0’ Mine?
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