THE Elgin-born poet-cleric Andrew Young is in fine form in this evocation of a still autumn day. The conclusion is also typical of the sometimes dark undertow of his work. The piece is in his Selected Poems (Carcanet, £9.95)

AUTUMN MIST

So thick a mist hung over all,

Rain had no room to fall;

It seemed a sea without a shore

The cobwebs drooped heavy and hoar

A though with wool they had been knit;

Too obvious mark for fly to hit!

And though the sun was somewhere else

The gloom had brightness of its own

That shone on bracken, grass and stone

And mole-mound with its broken shells

That told where squirrel lately sat,

Cracked hazel-nuts and ate the fat.

And sullen haw in the hedgerows

Burned in the damp with clearer fire;

And brighter still that those

The scarlet hips hung on the briar

Like coffins of the dead dog-rose;

All were as bright as though for earth

Death were a gayer thing than birth.