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Helen Cruickshank Quotes

1886–1975 Scotland

Helen Burness Cruickshank (15 May 1886 – 2 March 1975) was a Scottish poet and suffragist and a focal point of the Scottish Renaissance. Scottish writers associated with the movement met at her home in Corstorphine.

Scotland
Authors
Poets

Random Helen Cruickshank quote

14 quotes

But where this passionate self will go,
God knows,
Who knows whence the lightning comes, and
whither it goes.

While I am not teetotal, a drunk woman I find revolting and Burns orgies detestable.

Octobiography (1976)

Criticism in Scotland, of books as well as plays, is often bedevilled because we all know each other too well. The clique can cast its chill over its rivals; the claque delude with false praise.

Octobiography (1976)

Sae smoor yersel', my man,
Pit oot yer licht,
Grey hair that's tow
To a lassie's lowe
Is an unco sicht.

I am not asked out to drinking parties and have never been in a Rose Street pub. I can't be a poet.

Octobiography (1976)

They agonise in sordid
tenements,
with children stabled worse than sheep
or kye.
O, how can grace or peace or health abide
such poverty?

Laughter and gibes and scorn
they brave for her:
their pounds, their silver, and their pence
they give;
their time, their talent and their youth for her
that she may live.

This man set the flame
of his native genius
under the cumbering whin
of the untilled field;
Lit a fire in the Mearns
to illumine Scotland,
clearing the sullen soil
for a richer yield.

Up the Noran Water
In by Inglismaddy,
Annie's got a bairnie
That hasna got a daddy.
Some say it's Tammas's
An' some say it's Chay's;
An' naebody expec'it it,
Wi' Annie's quiet ways.

I mind o' the Ponnage Pule
On a shinin' mornin',
The saumon fishers
Nettin' the bonny brutes —
I' the slithery dark o' the boddom
O' Charon's Coble
Ae day I'll faddom my doots.

Bide the storm ye canna hinder,
Mindin’ through the strife,
Hoo the luntin’ lowe o’ beauty
Lichts the grey o’ life.

Attributed

Under an arch o’ bramble
Saftly she goes,
Dark broon een like velvet,
Cheeks like the rose.

Attributed

The man that mates wi’ Poverty
An’ clasps her tae his banes,
Will faither lean an’ lively thochts,
A host o’ eident weans.

Attributed

I mind o' the Ponnage Pool,
The reid brae risin',
Morphie Lade,
An' the saumon that louped the dam,
A tree i' Martin's Den
Wi' names carved on it;
But I ken na wha I am.

Attributed

Attribution

Quotes and notes from Wikiquote: Helen Cruickshank (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0.