A new production showcasing a collection of new music celebrating the work of William Thom, known as the ‘Inverury Poet’, will be held in Inverurie later this month.
The production will be held at the Acorn Centre in Inverurie, with music performed by the Aberdeenshire Saxophone Orchestra and Ugie Voices.
Below are two of William Thom’s poems:
‘Address to the Don‘
Dark Don, thy water’s rude repulsive scowl
And frothy margin, all too well bespeak
The upland ravages, the conflict bleak Of mountain winter; and the maddened howl
Of bruiting elements, distraught and foul, Have ruffled thy fair course and chok’d thy braes.
Love flies affrightened at thy swollen look;
The laverock may not hear its own sweet lays
O’er thy fierce chafings and the timid brook Sinks tremblingly amid thy surfy maze, Thou cold remembrancer of wilder human ways!
So soiled the social tide by some curst dee Of ancient ruffian or fool-so ages read
To weeping worlds of hearts that bled,
Of patriots and sages that have died Ere that broad stream was half repurified.
Roll thy dark waters, Don-we yet shall see
On thy bright bosom the fair symmetry Of vaulted heaven, when the shrill lark pours Voluptuous melody to listening flowers,
And all of man, of earth, and air shall feel What hate and darkness hurteth,
love and light can heal!
For who so dull that may not now behold
Yon cloud-repelling light, yon moral ray Piercing the night-born mist, the murky fold, That erst obscured the intellectual day?
God breathes again in man-those melt, for aye, Preparing, purifying to the sacred birth
Of virtues hitherto undared on earth.
ll The Mitherless Bairn
When a’ ither bairnies are hushed to their hame, By auntie, or cousin, or frecky grand-dame;
Wha stan’s last an lanely, an naebody cairn’? ‘T is the puir doited loonie-the mitherless bairn!
The mitherless bairn gangs till his lane bed, Nane covers his cauld back, or haps his bare head; His wee, hackit heelies are hard as the airn,
An’ litheless the lair o’ the mitherless bairn!
Aneath his cauld brow, siccan dreams tremble there,
O’ hands that wont kindly to kame his dark hair!
But mornin’ brings clutches, a’ reckless an’ stern,
That lo’e nae the locks o’ the mitherless bairn!
Yon sister that sang o’er his saftly-rocked bed,
Now rests in the mools whaur her mammie is laid;
The father toils sair their wee bannock to earn,
An’ kens nae the wrangs o’ his mitherless bairn!
Her spirit that pass’s in yon hour o’ his birth, Still watches his wearisome wand’rings on earth,
Recording in heaven the blessings they earn, Wha couthilie deal wi’ the mitherless bairn!
Oh! Speak him nae harshly- he trembles the while
He bends to your bidding and blesses your smile! In their dark hour o’ anguish, the heartless shall learn That God deals the blow for the mitherless bairn!
‘My Heather Land‘
My heather land, my heather land! My dearest pray’ r be thine; Although upon thy hapless heath,
There breathes nae friend o’ mine.
The lanely few that Heaven has spar’d Fend on a foreign strand; And I maun wait to weep wi’ thee, My hameless heather land!
My heather land, my heather land! Though fairer lands there be,
Thy gow’nie braes in early days, Were gowden ways to me.
Maun life’s poor boon gae dark’ning doun, Nor die whaur it had dawn’d ,
But claught a grave ayont the wave? Alas! my heather land!
My heather land, my heather land! Though chilling Winter pours His freezing breath roun’ fireless hearth, Whaur breadless misery cow’rs;
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