NAPOMO: Hugh MacDiarmid

[tree_and_leaf]

parrot_knight's tweet about a local festival which, among other things, commemorates Jacobite doings in 1715, reminds me of a very short poem by Hugh McDiarmid. Who one would not have expected to be a natural friend of Jacobite imagery, but the poem is none the worse for that.


The rose of all the world is not for me:
I want for my part
Only the little white rose of Scotland
That smells sharp, and sweet – and breaks the heart.

It is, incidentally, one of the fine assortment of quotations about Scotland or Scots opinions on the nature of politics, all bar one by Scots† carved on the Canongate Wall, part of our mildly eccentric Parliament building (about which opinions have differed, but I rather like it).


† The exception being Fr. Hopkins, who gets in on the strength of "Inversnaid" - as well he might.