I wish to go to Nova Scotia
And long to play in Breton fields,
Faraway and over the oceans,
For ever a bonnie soul shall lead.

I wish to row for Nova Scotia
And glide above the seas trembling,
Far beyond my earthly devotions,
Where ever a bonnie soul shall lead.

    I see long oars in every tree,
    In ocean swells, a boat for me,
    A lull of melodies in seabirds call,
    Beyond the wave is music and song.

I will follow a star to Nova Scotia
And suffer on seas of forgetfulness,
To play a fiddle with joyful Scotians,
For ever a bonnie soul has needs.

    I see long oars in every tree,
    In ocean swells, a boat for me,
    A lull of melodies in seabirds call,
    Beyond the wave is music and song.

Wee dovey singing in tree,
The sun shall soon rise
Greater than love,
But not for me.

Red deer on the fray moors,
The winds embrace you
For you are rich,
But I am poor.

Wildflowers all bright in gang,
Good earth psalms you
Deep in rootings,
I never sang.

Dark feathered crow moaning,
I have suffered mean loss,
My truest love gone,
Now I must rove.

.
So afar and tall are you to me,
For you are from shining mountains,
Higher than the clouds, your brow,
Darker than the heavens, your hair.

So small and fey am I to you,
For I am but lone whisper in glens,
Slight as one firefly on the moors
And my reflection but a tiny glow.

    Only to spark at edge of pools dark,
    Only to fly when in harnessing arms.

I crossed a bridge to be with you,
The streams slipping times away,
Beneath my girlhood, all in a rush,
Then I entered the deepest wood.

So small and wan was I to you,
For you are from snowy mountains
And I am from rain-watery glens,
For you are portrait and I bokeh.

    One day the woods engulfed me strong,
    One night the bridge I crossed was gone.
.

.
So afar and tall are you to me,
For you are from shining mountains,
Higher than the clouds, your brow,
Darker than the heavens, your hair.

So small and fey am I to you,
For I am but lone whisper in glens,
Slight as one firefly on the moors
And my reflection but a tiny glow.

    Only to spark at edge of pools dark,
    Only to fly when in harnessing arms.

I crossed a bridge to be with you,
The streams slipping times away,
Beneath my girlhood, all in a rush,
Then I entered the deepest wood.

So small and wan was I to you,
For you are from snowy mountains
And I am from rain-watery glens,
For you are portrait and I bokeh.

    One day the woods engulfed me strong,
    One night the bridge I crossed was gone.
.

If I approach you my hair feints,
In the wind like my heart.

If I look at you my eyes glaze up,
A beautiful birdy flies by.

What little words we seldom share,
I show such trouble speaking.

What little time near you I spend,
I have such fainty breathing.

Rain drops feel like your finger tips,
What I imagine touch to be.

Temperate waters in the harbour,
To carry boats fine out to sea.

If I approach you my hair feints,
In the wind like my heart.

If I look at you my eyes glaze up,
A beautiful birdy flies by.

What little words we seldom share,
I show such trouble speaking.

What little time near you I spend,
I have such fainty breathing.

Rain drops feel like your finger tips,
What I imagine touch to be.

Temperate waters in the harbour,
To carry boats fine out to sea.

The sea slides indifferently.
Waves crash, roll and skiff on,
My heart between the blue crests
That break down in the watered wind.

Lonely is my shy overlook,
The whole sky falls in tailspin,
My love was such a simple thing,
Precious as golden water on the moon.

On the banks I leave my soul
And drift away into balmy voids,
Seagulls circle and the tides return,
My mind is lost atop the sandy shores.

I loved you so
White as the swan
In purest snow

O white love
I will hover high
Let me sail above

I loved you true
Real as sky, oak on hill
Dancing in blue

O white love
Sing me eternal
In healing flame

I lost my one self
In the narrow straights
Sea depths, outer shelfs

O white love
I remember our face
Prideful without name

I wanted to wake
But was drowned in dream
A daymare you would nae break

I once wished to end together,
I wanted you so close and dear,
I wanted you like bees in heather,
How curious, strange to end familiars.

We grew in fondness, each landed eye,
O seasons turned through sun and chill,
Grew up together, teased and pried,
In the village schoolyards upon a hill.

And lately I have come to love you,
Greatly I have felt youths quickening,
Wishing for us to start as lovers true,
But playgrounds promise no beginnings.

Rain comes down,
Heavy as ache, wet as blood,
Makes dirt sound
That shatters ground and mood
Drumming onto leaves.

Rain scabs earth,
Murky as love, dark as wound,
Sprinkles the cold
Forest that smokes out light,
Sun smothers into moon.

Rain races down,
No things seem to matter much,
Creatures disembodied
Come and go in lazy rushes
Even heart withholds.

Rain cleanses not
And there is no sky these days
For flights so empty,
Lost in the faraways of nows,
Sun blots away by moon.

I see an angel slouching,
In the sky, as if heaven
Were so heavy.

Seabird, where do you come
From?  Is the earth too much,
To take all in?

I know how you feel sailing,
Above it all yet drawn too,
As I am drawn.

Wraith, I want to feel that place
You are winging from here,
As now, forgetting.

  But it's so hard to fly,
  Unlike you, just easily,
  I will close my blind eyes
  And trail your mission starry.

I will tread in air backwards,
Deep into sky heavens,
Sloughing all the way.

Today it will rain once again,
In the windows of cloudy eyes,
Where I and you unclearly exist,
On the lotted shores of memory.

Stoic birds wading upon waves,
That grieve and go, riding, broke,
An endless sweeping of sorrows,
Carried by moans on the wind.

In the windows of our new eyes
There was, then, true gleaming
And we were *****, by seasides,
Among sparkles of stars and sun.

The island so far away was here,
Perfect, bright, cast of nowadays,
Land only love in whisper knows
O, by the graceful seasides only.

Now, dry, shelled and castaway,
The wind is shrilling its long keen
And the cradle bones of our love
Lie still, asleep in sinking sands.

I am an island child,
Of dire rocks and thistle,
Clear lake and lone skies,
Of bonny birds who whistle,
I race the strands with tides,
Waiting for my lad to meet,
So lonely are the night stars
I dreamt in my loft to sleep,
Far is the isle of my mind,
To slip away on new voyage,
Near is the sorrow into kind,
As I wait for keep in marriage.

Sometimes winter is warm,
Jumpers and coats bundle.

The whitewashed cottages,
Smoke in a blanket of sleet,

You could say most anytime,
Island weather is ghastly fine,

Windy rain comes and goes,
Summer can be awfully cold.

Eye in the sky is my mood
And I slip lazing into blue,
The darkest true of your
Eyes, who cast me away,
So unmerciful, in the tides,
Sometimes the moon locks,
Is master of mine and aye,
Of she am I made.  

Tonight, as you held me,
So white was my spirit,
Luminous as Lazarus' grave,
As the holey silence, some
Wraith of looks in the sky,
Sometimes the moon shows,
Wears my face and I hers,
Of she am I made?

The night is brisk and raw,
So heated am I next to you,
Ghostly sad and beaming
With joy at the indigo sheet
Of floating stars on the sea,
You hold my heart like faith,
Nebulous as moon in ocean,
Of these I am made.

There was a rose I saw once bloomed,
Cuddled in stone yard garden, set free,
To fire in midsummer fields maid loom,
On the village path that ends by the sea.

The wind dances with you in the sun

O rose of happiness and of sorrows,
My heart is in bloom as you are true,
I love a boy so grand and unknowing
And I have no words, or song, or tune.

My heart sings with you in the sun

Little wee flower, who danced me away,
My dear companion, for a soul set free,
Nestled within walls of stone on parade,
Till one morn gone on a walk to the sea.

*Winds and my heart break in the sun

.
If our eyes
Should latch
Whilst pretending
To gaze unconcerned,
On some inconsequential street
Into days with sun and rainbows,
Dandy as lions on fields of praise,
Magical in bluish skies, mysterious
As eyes grasping without guile nor plan
Nor pains, then we might love as birds low,
Sing above, then we might truly be, become
Alive in the light of another lone, pining star
Under the infinite, shining, unruly heavens.

.
Oh Girleen, leave that dark, ****-covered rock

And watch no more the waves white-capped with foam                                

Nor listen to their sighs; they only mock

Your lonely sorrowed heart; now come back home.



I don’t watch each wave that sweeps and falls,

I don’t heed the sobbing of the sea –

I’m listening for my own true lover’s call

There, can you hear now? He’s calling me….



Ah Girleen, sure it’s only the wild, wild wind,

A-wailing o’er the waters its sad song;

Put all these thoughts of him far from your mind-

To our own good god alone, the dead belong.



Ye lie, he’s mine, for from the grey sea-mist.

Yesterday evening when the sun sunk low

He came and took me in his arms and kissed my mouth

Just like he used to, long ago.



And so, I’ll not go home, but here I’ll stay

For maybe, in the smoky gloamin’ dim,

He’ll come again out o’er the showers o’ spray

And take me o’er the ragin’ seas with him.