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THE DEIL
Beside the birks I met the Deil,
A wheen o’ words I niffered wi’ him
And, clear and lang, the wuds amang
The merle sang whaur ye couldna see him ;
The pale spring licht was late when he
Was whustling tae the Deil and me.
I didna think it was himsel’,
I thocht he had been auld an’ crookit,
Sae thrawn an’ grim in ilka limb
Ye’d ken him by the way he lookit;
Wha’d think the Deil wad linger on
Tae listen till a bird like yon ?
They tell’t me that the Deil was black
And blacker nor the corbie’s feather,
But, loopin’ doon, a-lowe wi’ noon,
Nae bum broun frae the peat an’ heather,
!9
Beside the birks I met the Deil,
A wheen o’ words I niffered wi’ him
And, clear and lang, the wuds amang
The merle sang whaur ye couldna see him ;
The pale spring licht was late when he
Was whustling tae the Deil and me.
I didna think it was himsel’,
I thocht he had been auld an’ crookit,
Sae thrawn an’ grim in ilka limb
Ye’d ken him by the way he lookit;
Wha’d think the Deil wad linger on
Tae listen till a bird like yon ?
They tell’t me that the Deil was black
And blacker nor the corbie’s feather,
But, loopin’ doon, a-lowe wi’ noon,
Nae bum broun frae the peat an’ heather,
!9
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Images and transcriptions on this page, including medium image downloads, may be used under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International Licence unless otherwise stated. 
| Works by selected Scottish authors > Violet Jacob > Northern lights: and other poems > (31) |
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| Permanent URL | https://digital.nls.uk/129094199 |
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| Shelfmark | NG.1168.f.12 |
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| Description | Violet Jacob (1863-1946) was born into an aristocratic family who had lived at the House of Dun near Montrose since the 15th century. Her classic novel of the 1745 Jacobite rising, 'Flemington” (1911), was highly regarded by John Buchan and is still in print. Jacob had a deep appreciation of the Angus dialect and countryside, and this is evident in her celebrated Scots language poetry in volumes such as 'Song of Angus' (1915). |
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| Description | A selection of classic out-of-copyright Scottish poetry, prose and children’s stories from the late 19th and early 20th centuries. |
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