Captain Campbell's Poetry

[Meg]

Just brought another piece of information about Ian Campbell to mind - he was in Glen Afton Sanitorium (New Cumnock) for a couple of years with the dreaded TB. Obviously survived:-)

Meg

[Penny Tray]

Meg,

Four, maybe five, of his remaining poems reflect hospital life/people/surroundings,supporting the view that he endured a lengthy spell of illness.

[Meg]

Yes,PT - 2 years of lying flat was the usual timescale. My Aunt Lizzie (Gordon) died in Glen Afton.

Meg

[Penny Tray]

Meg,

Let's hope Nurse McKay was around to comfort her.

THE NIGHT NURSE

When thro' the darkened watches of the night,
With tortured tossing as the senses leap,
For blissful hours of nothingness we fight,
Yours is the hand that brings solace and sleep.

Then when the icy stabs of winter wind
bring messages of searching snow and sleet,
And cold contorts the workings of the mind,
'Tis you that, ever watchful, brings us heat.

If, at the rushing in of early dawn,
Some poor thirst-hardened throat, and half-awake
Mumble for drink, with moan that lingers on,
'Tis you who hold the cup his thirst to slake.

Night is the blind that curtains o'er the soul,
And dulls the wonted brilliance of the eye,
But as the days bright heralds westward roll,
We find you ever watchful, Nurse McKay.

And listen, when old age with closing wing
Shall cause each memory in turn to die,
Yet shall the grateful heart triumphant sing,
As memory lingers on of Nurse McKay.

[Penny Tray]

THE MAKING OF A BED

She said she was in love with her profession,
That mended and attended broken parts,
And I gathered from the mode of her expression
That a nurse could make a shape at breaking hearts.

And altho' she didn't cast the least aspersion
On the streamlines on my blankets or their spread,
She told me that her foremost pet aversion
Was the shaking and the making of a bed.

You should call her when you have neuralgic twinges,
She's an adept at the banishing of pains,
And she loves to work around the wild syringes
That inject the sanocrysin in our veins.

She's acquired a taking way with all the flowers,
As she puts them in the female ward instead,
But she's welcome, for her smile enlightens ours,
Tho' she doesn't like the making of a bed.

[Penny Tray]

THE PIRATES

(On reading a poem called "The Legend of the Wooden Walls.")

I relish this news from the rolling sea,
The sea that whispers, and beckons and calls,
And I'll give you the tale of the lawless sail,
To round off the song of the Wooden Walls.

For I know the night of the pirate craft,
When buccaneers come up from the dead,
To carouse and fight in the starry light
Of a ghostly cove around Bengore Head.

And there where Fingal, in years gone by,
Made storms in the ocean by throwing stones,
I've heard the noise of the Barbary Boys,
As they drank to the health of the Skull and Bones.

I've seen them a-counting the gold dubloons,
And sniffed at the rum and the wine they drank,
And look on aghast by the raking mast
At the fated ones as they walked the plank.

There on the night of the moon's eclipse
You'll see re-enacted the things they did,
When they scoured the seas to the harsh decrees
Of Henry Morgan and Captain Kidd.

And all the night long they sing their songs
Of treasure that's hidden in golden sands,
Of the deeds they've done and the fights they've won,
With the freebooting boys of the lawless lands.

And the fiddler plays on the capstan head,
As they dance around with the capstan bars,
And the topmast high swings athwart the sky,
While they Jolly Rodger dusts the stars.

But at early dawn, as the daylight comes,
The cove comes up to the present again,
While the buccaneers sail down the years
To the long ago in the Spanish Main.

[Penny Tray]

RESTRAINT

I don't want to lie in this invalid bed,
Where my joints and reflexes will rust.
I'd rather be polishing lockers instead,
Or dishing out teatrays and slices of bread,
And clearing the trollies of dust.
I mentioned all this to the Doctor who said:
You must get that notion right out of your head,
You're better when lying, than dying or dead,
So you'll lie there and like it or Bust."

I said, "It's like this, I don't feel any pains,
And my heart has a regular beat;
There no Sanocrysin required in my veins,
And my lungs aren't spotted with nicotine stains,
Or shrivelled with tropical heat."
He said, "Now, young fellow, the man who complains
Was absent when nature was dishing out brains,
You lies in yer bed, son, an' there ye remains,
Or I'll blister the soles of your feet."

Dr. Stewart was there, and the matron was there,
The sister was there and a nurse;
He had all the support, which I thought wasn't fair,
For to contradict ladies I never would dare,
Or to argue with them, which is worse.
Their eyes seemed to say, "You may think you've a flair
For getting things done with your nautical air;
But we'll puncture that fallacy, 'Sailors don't care,'
For you'll lie on that bed till you curse."

Dr. Wilson said, "Sonny, it won't take a trick;
You'll get up in November - perhaps;
But lie there just now, for your pallid and sick,
And you can't even wriggle or wiggle or kick,
For it's certain you'd have a relapse.
Now keep mighty quiet, or I'll wield the bick stick,
And call in my colleague, the awful Bruce Dick,
And we'll give you all three in one whacking big lick,
Sanocrysin, BE, and Collapse.

[morag]

ooooh! I really like verse three! lol.

[down south]

I wonder if one reason he took to writing poetry was to give him something to keep him occupied while stuck in the sanatorium like this. I'd been thinking in terms of the tedium of long sea voyages as a spur, but the enforced inactivity here must have been much more frustrating, as this poem makes so plain.

Susan

[Penny Tray]

BEDLAM BEDMATES

Here is the tale I'd tell to thee
Of three amazing musketeers,
Who dwell across the ward from me
And drive me every day to tears.

I think they're right in mental health,
Tho' many patients doubt it;
And as for gross and worldly wealth,
Well here we do without it.

I'll just describe them one by one,
These three amazing fellows;
Or better still, by way of fun,
We'll let them air their bellows.

McFarlane first, a miner bold,
Who occupies the corner bed,
With Crosshoose tongue, but heart of gold,
Inspires the other two with dread.

In order that I can't be blamed
For keeping it a mystery,
I'll let him who for talk is famed
Recite his own damn history.

MCFARLANE'S SPEECH

Frae Crosshoose I came, it's a village o' fame,
An' I ken that I'll sairly be missed,
An' I'd wander back there, but it wouldnae be fair,
Till they've stoppit the leak in my kist.

I'll maybe be here for the hauf o' a year,
But cosy an' snug will I bide,
An' the nurses I'll fret, an' the patients I'll pet,
Except thae two de'ils at my side.

Mclardy and Black, they're the worst o' the pack,
For their tongues wag gey aften and glib,
An' I don't like tae blaw, but a trip tae Glenga'
Is the cure for Geordie and Gib.

They're baith gaun tae speak, an' they'll talk for a week,
Tho' I grant that they'll stop for a feed;
Their kists ye can tell are as soun' as a bell;
The trouble's a' up in their heid.

Noo, I've talked long enough, and I'm fair oot o' puff,
So I'll just be as quate as a moose,
If ye want a bit crack, when the year's on its back,
Ye'll fin' me at hame in Crosshoose.

Now that is Sanny's story told,
And to it nothing will I add;
But pass along to hear the sang
Of Gilbert, our Tarbolton lad.

McLARDY'S SPEECH

I'm Gilbert Mclardy; tall, lanky and hardy,
Tho' presently laid on my back;
An' sorry am I that they've forced me to lie
'Tween Sanny McFarlane and Black.

For morning and night they're engaged in a fight,
An' the shafts o' their tongues are sae keen,
An' it isnae much fun if each man has a gun,
An' you're the puir chiel in between.

But I'm never excited, I ken that they're dited,
Their brains are a' rattled an' loose;
That's expected, ye ken, for the both o' the men
Are products o' Troon and Crosshoose.

The Callant frae Troon plays the stert o' a tune,
An' then the mooth-organ, it sticks;
While the man frae Crosshoose gies a yell o' abuse,
An' shouts, "Wha's that drappin' the bricks."

They wad gie ye the scunner and dod! it's nae wunner,
An' frien's, I'm sae sorry tae tell,
Wae the talk o' thae two, and their blether an' blaw,
I'm gey near demented mysel'.

Now Georgie Black, the last of all,
Will give you his oration,
And doubtless at his mates will bawl
In swift retaliation.
These last few days he's full of vim
And cheery in his talk,
Because the doctor said to him,
"Lift up they bed and walk."

BLACK'S SPEECH

I'm Georgie Black, the last to speak,
I'll talk sae sensible and canny,
For in my heid there's no a leak,
Like Gibbie there, and Crosshoose Sanny.

I'm sorry for the loonies baith,
It must be awfu' tae be dighted,
An' yet it's just a waste o' braith
Denyin' what they've baith recited.

In fact, it's haurdly worth my while
Tae ta' the least bit notice o' them;
I'm gettin' up an' I can smile,
And in a week or two I'll show them.

An' noo, my friens, I'm done wae talkin',
I hope ye've a' enjoyed my crack;
Frae here tae Troon I'll soon be walkin'.
Yours sincerely, "Doddy Black."

Now what do you think of these fellows,
And the way that the three of them speak;
They seem to have sound enough bellows,
But maybe they're mentally weak.
However, they've appetites growing,
For they eat and they drink, and they gorge,
And fair be the winds that are blowing
On Sanny and Gibbie and George.

[Meg]

I wonder if one reason he took to writing poetry was to give him something to keep him occupied while stuck in the sanatorium like this. I'd been thinking in terms of the tedium of long sea voyages as a spur, but the enforced inactivity here must have been much more frustrating, as this poem makes so plain.

Susan

I think this situation added to his need to write poetry Susan, but he was writing twenty years before he was confined to his bed at Glen Afton - I think if it's in, it will out - and in my opinion, his best poetry was his humerous ones. Like Burns, I think the poetry he felt deepest about was written in Scots, the less meaningful to him written in English.

Meg

[Penny Tray]

SHE CAME FRAE AYR COONTY

She came frae Ayr Coonty, the toonship o' Troon,
An' her smile was beguilin' tae see,
The radiance shed frae the staurs or the moon
Couldnae match wae the glint o' her e'e.

This bonnie wee lassie she smiled at a loon,
A glaikit-like writer o' rhyme,
Till he liftit his voice an' he stertit tae croon,
Wae the throbs o' his heart beatin' time.

"Oh! the warld it is big, an' expansive, an' roon',
an' its lassies are mony and braw,
But its highways or byways search up or search doon,
May Crosby's the queen o' them a'."