The poet laureate, Carol Ann Duffy, has delivered a poem on the Scottish independence referendum, a day after the 55%-45% No verdict. As the Queen issued a measured statement expressing the hope that “all of us throughout the United Kingdom” would respect the outcome of the vote, Duffy’s poem, ‘September 2014’, opens with the lines: “A thistle can draw blood, / so can a rose”.  It is published on the front page of Saturday’s Guardian. Duffy was born in the Gorbals in Glasgow, and is the first Scot to have been appointed poet laureate. Her poem concludes: “Aye, here’s to you, / cousins, sisters, brothers, / in your brave, bold, brilliant land: / the thistle jags our hearts, / take these roses / from our bloodied hands.”  

 

September 2014

 

Tha gaol agam ort *

 

A thistle can draw blood,

                                            so can a rose,

growing together

where the river flows, shared currency,

across a border it can never know:

where, somewhen, Rabbie Burns might swim,

or pilgrim Keats come walking

out of love for him.

                                  Aye, here’s to you,

cousins, sisters, brothers,

in your bold, brave, brilliant land:  

the thistle jags our hearts,

take these roses,

                             from our bloodied hands.

 

*I love you

 

 

Carol Ann Duffy