Helen Cruickshank
British poet
Helen Burness Cruickshank (15 May 1886 – 2 March 1975) was a Scottish poet and suffragist and a focal point of the Scottish Renaissance. Scottish writers associated with the movement met at her home in Corstorphine.
Quotes
edit- Up the Noran Water
In by Inglismaddy,
Annie's got a bairnie
That hasna got a daddy.
Some say it's Tammas's
An' some say it's Chay's;
An' naebody expec'it it,
Wi' Annie's quiet ways.- "Shy Geordie", st. 1, in Up the Noran Water (1934)
- See Illegitimacy
- This man set the flame
of his native genius
under the cumbering whin
of the untilled field;
Lit a fire in the Mearns
to illumine Scotland,
clearing the sullen soil
for a richer yield.- "Spring in the Mearns", st. 6, in Sea Buckthorn (1954)
- Eulogising Lewis Grassic Gibbon
- Sae smoor yersel', my man,
Pit oot yer licht,
Grey hair that's tow
To a lassie's lowe
Is an unco sicht.- "An Unco Sicht", st. 2, in Sea Buckthorn (1954)
- Laughter and gibes and scorn
they brave for her:
their pounds, their silver, and their pence
they give;
their time, their talent and their youth for her
that she may live.- "Lines for the Scottish Watch", st. 1, in Sea Buckthorn (1954)
- See Wendy Wood
- They agonise in sordid
tenements,
with children stabled worse than sheep
or kye.
O, how can grace or peace or health abide
such poverty?- "Lines for the Scottish Watch", st. 3, in Sea Buckthorn (1954)
- I mind o' the Ponnage Pule
On a shinin' mornin',
The saumon fishers
Nettin' the bonny brutes —
I' the slithery dark o' the boddom
O' Charon's Coble
Ae day I'll faddom my doots.- "The Ponnage Pool", st. 4, in The Ponnage Pool (1968)
- But where this passionate self will go,
God knows,
Who knows whence the lightning comes, and
whither it goes.- "At the End", in Collected Poems (1971)
- While I am not teetotal, a drunk woman I find revolting and Burns orgies detestable.
- Octobiography (1976), ch. 9
- Criticism in Scotland, of books as well as plays, is often bedevilled because we all know each other too well. The clique can cast its chill over its rivals; the claque delude with false praise.
- Octobiography (1976), ch. 15
- I am not asked out to drinking parties and have never been in a Rose Street pub. I can't be a poet.
- Octobiography (1976), ch. 20
Unsourced
edit- I mind o' the Ponnage Pool,
The reid brae risin',
Morphie Lade,
An' the saumon that louped the dam,
A tree i' Martin's Den
Wi' names carved on it;
But I ken na wha I am.- "The Ponnage Pool"
- Bide the storm ye canna hinder,
Mindin’ through the strife,
Hoo the luntin’ lowe o’ beauty
Lichts the grey o’ life.- "Sea Buckthorn"
- The man that mates wi’ Poverty
An’ clasps her tae his banes,
Will faither lean an’ lively thochts,
A host o’ eident weans.- "Comfort in Puirtith"
- Under an arch o’ bramble
Saftly she goes,
Dark broon een like velvet,
Cheeks like the rose.- "In Glenskenno Woods"