Scottish Poetry Selection
- Aviation

Clearly Walter Wingate was not too enamoured of the new-fangled aeroplanes which were giving "pleasure" flights at Lanark in the early part of the 20th century! But there is a twinkle in eye, nevertheless.


Aviation

Gang up wi' ye to Lanark?
What for wad I gang there?
Gae tak' your pleesure whaur ye will?
I'm safer in my chair.
Nae doubt 'twill be a bonnie sicht indeed

When legs and arms come whummlin' on your heid!

It's maybe in the Scriptur';
I never saw it there.
I've sat in town and landward kirks
For seeventy year and mair?
But never heard frae ony, deid or leevin',
O' dragons takin' passengers to Heeven.

They tell me that trapeezin'
Was stoppit by the law;
It seems it's naething for a man
To mak' himsel' a craw!
I'm stupit? Ay? I ne'er could see the sense
O' fleein' in the face o' Providence!

Meaning of unusual words:
gang=go
sicht=sight
whummlin'=tumbling
craw=crow

Return to the Index of Walter Wingate Poems or the General Index of Scottish Poetry



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