Two English Poems of Douglas YoungrnFor the Old HighlandsrnThat old lonely lovely way of livingrnin Highland places,—twenty years a-growing,rntwenty years flowering, twenty years declining,—rnfather to son, mother to daughter givingrnripe tradition; peaceful bounty flowing;rnone harmony all tones of life combining,—rnold wise ways, passed like the dust blowing.rnThat harmony of folk and land is shattered,—rnthe early rhythm of things, the social graces,rnpeat-fire and music, candle-light and kindness.rnNow they are gone it seems they never mattered,rnmuch, to the world, those proud and violent races,rnclansmen, and chiefs whose passioned greed and blindnessrnmade desolate these lovely lonely places.rnWinter Homily on the Calton HillrnThese chill pillars of fluted stonernshine back the lustre of the leaden sky,rnstiff columns clustered on a doleritc hillrnin solemn order, an unperfcctcd visionrndimly gleaming. Not at random thrownrnlike old Greek temples that abandoned liernwith earthquake-riven drums. Rigid and chillrnthis still-born ruin stands for our derision.rnA fine fantasy of the Whig literatirnto build a modern Athens in our frore islands,rnthose elegant oligarchs of the Regency period,rnPhilhellenic nabobs and the Scots nobility.rnAs soon expect to meet a bearded Gujeratirnstravaiging in a kilt throu the uttermost Highlands,rnor in Princes Street gardens a coy and blushing Nereid.rnAthens proved incapable of such mobility.rnIs the thing meaningless, as it is astonishing,rna senseless fantasy, out of time and place?rnApeing foreign fashions is always derisible,rnand mimicry, for Plato, was the soul’s unmaking.rnThe ruin is symbolic, a symbol admonishingrnScottish posterity. Seekers after gracernmust not imitate the outward and visible.rnThe culture of Athens was a nation’s awaking.rnNOVEMBER 1995/37rnrnrn