Edinburgh. What a City!

Edinburgh from Arthur’s Seat. Castle to the left, St Giles the ’rounded’ spire in the middle, and Salisbury Crags to the right

This is a poem which is ‘printed’ on the side of the Scottish Parliament.

by Hugh MacDiarmid

But Edinburgh is a mad god’s dream
Fitful and dark,
Unseizable in Leith
And wildered by the Forth,
But irresistibly at last
Cleaving to sombre heights
Of passionate imagining
Till stonily,
From soaring battlements,
Earth eyes Eternity

Hugh MacDiarmid (1892-1978)

Poem by Hugh MacDiarmid about Edinburgh