"Blood cooled by Calvin, mist and bog/And summers in the rain." Anyone recognise this?

[singersgirl]

This quote is driving me mad. It's not fiction, but the end (I think) of a poem by a Scottish poet, but I can't find it anywhere and no-one I ask knows it (and I even asked some Scottish poets).

The collective power of Mumsnet must yield answers, surely!

Come on, all you ferociously literate and extraordinarily well-read people! Help me out here. I can't have made it up; I'd never have thought of it.

Calvin Klein,is that ?

Oh, I was all excited that you knew it....I think it was an adolescent angsty type thing, about growing up in the Highlands or on an island.

sorry,was trying to place it in time,so obviously contemporary ?

Thought it was a description of Gordon Brown at first!

No it's Calvin the protestant, isn't it. Sorry. Can't help. But it's rather good isn't it.

Yes, it's definitely about someone who had the same sort of upbringing as Broun, but went on to be a poet, not PM. And, yes, it's harsh Protestantism that cooled the poor chap's blood.

Thanks for thoughts, anyway.

Try Abebooks - they have a booksleuth section which managed to find me the title of a poem that I remembered a bit of from school. good luck

Thanks for that suggestion, Noscat. I will try! It's really bugging me. I'll let you know if I find out.

It's not Seamus Heaney, is it? Sorry, I see the word "bog" in a poem and automatically think of 'North'...

Oh duh - you said Scottish poet. Pay attention, Floss...

Well, I thought Scottish, but I could be wrong. Only I think if it was Heaney more people would recognise it. But will have a look at Heaney. Thanks for the suggestion.

In case anyone's interested, and for those that suggested anyone, it turns out it is Laurie Lee from his book Many Coated Man - it may even be the poem of the same name, but I've yet to get hold of a copy. Not Scottish at all, then!

How did you find it, in the end? - it's of an obscurity! (If you just remembered by yourself, I like that you had a "tag memory" of adolescent growing up. Which is, of course, Laurie Lee all over.)

I posted on Abebooks, as noscat suggested, and somebody answered me. It turned out that they had just looked for it in Google Books. Now I never even knew there was a Google Books, so I have been clearly looking in all the wrong places.

I was minded of it because I spent a few days recently in the wilds of Inverness-shire and every time I stepped outside onto the hillside the phrase came to me unbidden.

My Many Coated Man does ring bells, and I remember studying Laurie Lee poems. I shall look for it next time I go to the library!

I have also had that same poem fragment in my head for many years. Thanks for finding its origin. I have always known when it lodged in my head and that was during my Eng Lit 'O' level but I had forgotten who wrote it.
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