Edwin Morgan

The rumour of my death has long abated. The Greeks still love me, but I don’t love Greeks Except for one – or two; I must be fated To wander and to change; when the mast creaks I smell the salt and know my soul unsated Until it finds the language no man speaks. And what is that? some simpleton demands Who’s never heard the seething of the sands.

No seething here, though, or...

He’s killed his father, don’t know it yet but will. Red hands grip crusts till he has scoffed his fill. The tight cords hurt his body – not his will.

Bandit, savage, reiver, devil, scum – he’s saddled with his titles till kingdom come. To him, useless resentment’s long gone numb.

His eyes pierce through his own darkness; his skin is windburnt, dirtpocked;...

I have been prowling round it. Nothing moves. The winter fields are hard, half-white. There is something fogged and hoary about But it won’t settle. I would be stiff If I failed to circle. As it is, My crest tingles. I am not in gloom. The low sun paints me – I stare at it – A sort of leaden gold along my joints. I lift a hand spilling...

The old suspension bridge was shaking. The junkie on the rail was making One last hazy calculation, Climbed over, dropped his desperation With his body. The grey river Closed on thin flesh and thin shiver. He had not thought there was a boat, A boatman, looking for the float Of life to save or drowned to gaff Or some poor soul who’s half and half Glazed between heaven and earth...

A fairytale, whatever messages may be inserted into it or teased out from it, is a tale of marvels. A cat struts past in boots. A demon swells out from a lamp like steam from a kettle. A princess cannot sleep because a pea below her twenty mattresses is hurting her. A prince is metamorphosed from a frog (the poet Norman MacCaig used to say it would be even better if a frog metamorphosed from...