Gin the threid haud’n us to the rose were snapt,
There’s no’ a’e petal o’t that ’ud be clapt.
A’ Scotland gi’es gangs but to jags or stalk,
The bloom is English—and ’ud ken nae lack!...
O drumlie clood o’ crudity and cant,
Obliteratin’ as the Easter rouk
That rows up frae the howes and droons the heichs,
And turns the country to a faceless spook.
Like blurry shapes o’ landmarks in the haar
The bonny idiosyncratic place-names loom,