LD 363 World Poetry Day - a Scottish take

Today is World Poetry Day but I only realised that when looking at the entry for the 21st of March in Pauline MacKay's excellent , enjoyable and always thought provoking "Burns for Every Day of the Year".

She chooses a lesser known work of Burns, for today,  "A Sketch on Pastoral Poetry"in  which he celebrates an eclectic range of poets who have written pastoral verse before naming  the one he thinks , as Dr MacKay puts it "most capable of representing Nature in all her glory"  - Scotland's Allan Ramsay .

"In this braw age o'wit and lear,
Will name the Shepherd's whistle mair
Blaw sweetly in his native air 
                         And rural grace
And wi' the far-fame'd Grecian share
                         A rival place?

Yes!  There is ane ; a Scottish callan!
There's one : come forrit, honest Allan !
Thou need na jouk behind the halal
                          A chiel sae clever
The teeth o'Time may gnaw Tamtallan
                           But thou's forever."

You can read the whole poem here, and my  picture is of nature at its spring best - the willow outside my study is alive with bees feasting on the first pollen of the year.

No "gowany glens"  as the poem has it , as yet  but it won't be long now.