Jean Baxter > Quotes

“Win

Ower hill an brae
He comes tae play,
The rantin roarin Win;
He cowps the trees
An lachs tae hear the din,

He sweels the spate
The deil's ain gate
Oot ower the feckless banks.
An Tilly's stooks
Furl roon like deuks
Wi panic i the ranks!

Wi jaggit shears
The duds he tears
Aff lines she filled sae croose,
An reek an flaws
Doon lums he ca's
A' steerin throwe the hoose.

Ower yard an closs.
A sair-like loss
He spreads o hay an strae;
The hens he blaws
Like feather ba's
Tae gie his humour play.

An neist he's aff
Tae tig an daff
Wi' quinies fae the skweel;
Like sails o ships
He fulls their slips -
Syne dooks them i the peel!

Ower hill an brae
He comes tae play,
The rantin roarin Win;
An grannies tell
His pooers sae fell,
An dra their airmchairs in.”
― Jean Baxter, A' Ae 'Oo'

“It must have been soon after that when ways and means were much under discussion that Leslie and Ray came to see us in Wokingham. Leslie was working at high pressure on all sorts of subjects but although he was beginning to find his financial worries lessen he still seemed not to have found and in my opinion did not exactly know what he might be able to do best. I suggested that he wrote a great Scots drama or novel. With one voice Leslie and Ray said it would never pay. I protested that it would if it was good enough - that Scotland was gasping for a picture of the true Scotland as he and I knew it - a picture that was neither A House with the Green Shutters nor yet A Bonnie Briar Bush, neither of which to me rang true.”
― Jean Baxter, Another Song at Sunset: Jean Baxter, Scots poet and friend of Lewis Grassic Gibbon