The year birls on its axle
Rikk frae a wintry reef
Is a ribbon o grey frae a cauldron
Furled like a cassen leaf

Hyne in the wast, cauld cailleachs
The ghaists o the Grampians lie
Back o the ploo far the bare birks boo
Is blaik’s a tinker’s gley

A keekin glaiss o watter
Is the puil that the dubs rise roon
Far the elfin green o the chitterin breem
Casts its drookit likeness doon

Straicht lines o Black Watch sodjers
Haudin their bayonets heich
Are the fir wids raxxed ower fairmlans
Far the leaden lift hings dreich

Januar — spinnly branches
Wi their fingers aboot tae brier
Throw the snaw an haar o steen-cauld glaur
Gie birth tae the bairn-new year.