The Rock Pillar Known as the Old Man of Hoy

The following poem is taken from a volume entitled The Wreck of the Archangel. It is from my favorite Scottish poet, George Mackay Brown, whom I met at Stromness on the Orkney Mainland in 1976.

In Memoriam I. K.

That one should leave The Green Wood suddenly
     In the good comrade-time of youth,
     And clothed in the first coat of truth
Set out alone on an uncharted sea:

Who’ll ever know what star
     Summoned him, what mysterious shell
     Locked in his ear that music and that spell,
And what grave ship was waiting for him there?

The greenwood empties soon of leaf and song.
     Truth turns to pain. Our coats grow sere.
     Barren the comings and goings on this shore.
He anchors off The Islands of the Young.