Helen Cruickshank

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.

Quotes

• 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.
  • "Shy Geordie", st. 1, in Up the Noran Water (1934)
  • See Illegitimacy

• 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.
  • "Spring in the Mearns", st. 6, in Sea Buckthorn (1954)
  • Eulogising Lewis Grassic Gibbon

• Sae smoor yersel', my man,
  Pit oot yer licht,
  Grey hair that's tow
  To a lassie's lowe
  Is an unco sicht.
  • "An Unco Sicht", st. 2, in Sea Buckthorn (1954)

• 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.
  • "Lines for the Scottish Watch", st. 1, in Sea Buckthorn (1954)
  • See Wendy Wood

• They agonise in sordid
  tenements,
  with children stabled worse than sheep
  or kye.
  O, how can grace or peace or health abide
  such poverty?
  • "Lines for the Scottish Watch", st. 3, in Sea Buckthorn (1954)

• 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.
  • "The Ponnage Pool", st. 4, in The Ponnage Pool (1968)

• But where this passionate self will go,
     God knows,
  Who knows whence the lightning comes, and
     whither it goes.
  • "At the End", in Collected Poems (1971)

• While I am not teetotal, a drunk woman I find revolting and Burns orgies detestable.
  • Octobiography (1976), ch. 9

• 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), ch. 15

• 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), ch. 20

Unsourced

• 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.
  • "The Ponnage Pool"

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

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

• Under an arch o’ bramble
  Saftly she goes,
  Dark broon een like velvet,
  Cheeks like the rose.
  • "In Glenskenno Woods"