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Association for Scottish Literature @asls.org.uk · 12/09/2026

Thou hast my kith and kin; My childhood, youth, and manhood brave; Thou hast that unforgotten grave Within thy central din. A sacredness of love and death Dwells in thy noise and smoky breath. —“Glasgow”, by Alexander Smith (1829–1867) #BookWormSat #poem #poetry

Glasgow
Alexander Smith

Sing, Poet, ’tis a merry world;
That cottage smoke is rolled and curled
In sport, that every moss
Is happy, every inch of soil;—
Before me runs a road of toil
With my grave cut across.
Sing, trailing showers and breezy downs—
I know the tragic hearts of towns.

City! I am true son of thine;
Ne’er dwelt I where great mornings shine
Around the bleating pens;
Ne’er by the rivulets I strayed,
And ne’er upon my childhood weighed
The silence of the glens.
Instead of shores where ocean beats,
I hear the ebb and flow of streets. . . .

Afar, one summer, I was borne;
Through golden vapours of the morn,
I heard the hills of sheep:
I trod with a wild ecstasy
The bright fringe of the living sea:
And on a ruined keep
I sat, and watched an endless plain
Blacken beneath the gloom of rain.

O fair the lightly sprinkled waste,
O’er which a laughing shower has raced!
O fair the April shoots!
O fair the woods on summer days,
While a blue hyacinthine haze
Is dreaming round the roots!
In thee, O city! I discern
Another beauty, sad and stern.

Draw thy fierce streams of blinding ore,
Smite on a thousand anvils, roar
Down to the harbour-bars;
Smoulder in smoky sunsets, flare
On rainy nights, while street and square
Lie empty to the stars.
From terrace proud to alley base,
I know thee as my mother’s face.

When sunset bathes thee in his gold,
In wreaths of bronze thy sides are rolled,
Thy smoke is dusty fire;
And from the glory round thee poured,
A sunbeam like an angel’s sword
Shivers upon a spire.
Thus have I watched thee, Terror! Dream!
While the blue Night crept up the stream . . .

But all these sights and sounds are strange;
Then wherefore from thee should I range?
Thou hast my kith and kin;
My childhood, youth, and manhood brave;
Thou hast that unforgotten grave
Within thy central din.
A sacredness of love and death
Dwells in thy noise and smoky breath.

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AScottishBookCollector @noahdidny.bsky.social · 12/09/2026

A fine anthology, illustrated by Marzaroli, Bone, et al It contains Edwin Morgan's poem about the brief time Gerard Manley Hopkins spent in Glasgow At St Josephs, off Garscube road. I lived across the street and was baptized at the font he used. My only claim to fame.

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