From No Elegy

This rear of hills and the encircling sky,
Scotland…

Home of the seagull, home of the oil,
heartland of lost causes, heart’s dream of the exile,
hoast of fawn-faced bronchitics, doomed on the dole,
dun hold of millions in an industrial sprawl,
home of the failed which bred the word ‘leal’.
High priced resort of the tourist, last lap of the Gael…

published in Jenny Robertson, Beyond the Border, Chapman 1989)