When the Tide Comes In

When the Tide Comes In
DANIIL LAZKO

The ferry shouldered through the smirr
An nudged her fenders tae the quay.
Alec, wha’d little cause tae stir
Frae his boat-shed, had come tae see
Hoo the new plank he’d fittit sat —
Or sae he said, an stuck tae that.

The gangway rattled doon, an syne
Cam Elspeth, wi her case, in heels,
Her hair cut short, her coat ower fine
For smirr an tar an partan creels.
“Alec.” “Elspeth.” “It’s cold.” “It is.”
They noddit — first her heid, then his.

“Gie’s that.” “I’ve humphed it this faur —
Frae Dundee, Alec. I can cope.”
Her heel landit on weed an glaur
An skitit sideweys on the slope.
He’d grippit her afore she fell.
“Ye’re copin grand,” he said. “I can tell.”

She didna step back aa that quick;
His jaicket, roch agin her cheek,
Smelt o the shed, o tar laid thick,
An neither fand a word tae speak,
Till Davie, coilin rope, turned roond:
“Hoo’s yer plank sittin?” “Soond.”

She pit her coat tae richts. “Ye’re grey.”
“An you’ve gaen pan-loaf in the toun.”
“I hivna.” “‘Cold,’ I heard ye say.”
“Wheesht.” But she lauched, an lookit doon.
His een gaed tae her craig: the same wee mark.
Hers, tae his shouthers, braid wi wark.

She couldna look him in the face.
He liftit the case. It wis then she saw
The auld wool glove, the thoom, the place
She’d darnt wi reid, an gaed awa.
“It’s warm,” he said, afore she could speir.
The watter sookit ablow the pier.

“I’m hame till spring,” she said, “nae mair,
An I’m no the lass that left, ye ken.”
“I’d no want her back. She wis sair
Tae thole. An I wis glaikit then.
The shed’s aye open, gin ye’re by.”
She thocht a meenit. “Mebbe. Aye.”

“I’ll see ye hame.” The quay wis toom.
“It’s no yer road.” “It is the nicht.”
He held oot his haun. Her thoom
Fand the reid, an she held ticht.
They took the road. At the moorin chain
The tide cam knockin in again.

Tuapse, 12 October 2026
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Glossary of Scots Words
Spellings follow the poem. Past-tense forms in -it (fittit, landit, liftit) are the regular Scots ending after stop consonants.
aa all
ablow below, beneath
afore before
agin against
an and
auld old
awa away
aye yes; also always (the shed’s aye open)
braid broad
cam came
couldna could not
craig neck, throat
creel wicker basket; here a crab-trap
darnt darned, mended with yarn
didna did not
doon down
een eyes
fand found
faur far
fittit fitted
frae from
gaed went
gaen gone
gie’s give me (literally give us)
gin if
glaikit foolish, thoughtless
glaur mud, slime
grippit gripped, caught hold of
hame home
haun hand
heid head
hivna have not
hoo how
humph to carry something heavy, to lug
jaicket jacket
ken know; ye ken, you know
landit landed
lass young woman, girl
lauched laughed
liftit lifted
lookit looked
mair more; nae mair, no longer
meenit minute
mebbe maybe
muckle big, large
nae no (as in nae mair, no more)
no not (I’m no the lass; It’s no yer road)
nicht night; the nicht, tonight
noddit nodded
o of
oot out
ower over; too (ower fine)
pan-loaf of speech: affectedly genteel, ‘posh’ (from the dearer tin-baked loaf)
partan edible crab; partan creel, a wicker crab-trap
pit tae richts put to rights, straighten
reid red
roch rough
roond round
sae so
sair sore; sair tae thole, hard to bear
shouthers shoulders
sideweys sideways
skitit skidded, slipped
smirr fine, drifting drizzle
sookit sucked
soond sound, in good condition
speir to ask
syne then, next
tae to
thocht thought
thole to endure, to bear
thoom thumb
ticht tight
toom empty
toun town
wark work
watter water
wee small, little
wha’d who had
wheesht hush, be quiet
wi with
wis was
ye, yer you, your
-in present participle ending: coilin, knockin, sittin, moorin
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Literary Analysis
A Small Drama in Eight Scenes
The poem tells a complete story in forty-eight lines: a ferry docks, a woman steps off, a man who has found a pretext to be on the pier steadies her when she slips, and the two of them, after years apart, walk away together up the harbour road. Each stanza is a single movement of that story. The first establishes Alec’s pretext; the second brings Elspeth down the gangway; the third gives the slip and the catch; the fourth holds the embrace a moment too long until a neighbour breaks it; the fifth measures the years in teasing and in glances; the sixth turns on the darned glove; the seventh is the one passage of plain speech; the eighth is the offer, the hand and the tide.
The arc runs from guarded politeness to a deliberate touch, and it runs slowly. Humour comes first and does protective work: the characters joke because they cannot yet say anything else. Tenderness arrives only after the glove has done what neither of them can do in words.
Character Through Speech
Almost nothing about Elspeth and Alec is explained; nearly everything is spoken or done. Alec is a man of practical excuses. He has come down tae see / Hoo the new plank he’d fittit sat — / Or sae he said, an stuck tae that, and when Davie, coiling rope on the pier, later asks him how the plank is sitting, he sticks to it with a single word: Soond. The callback turns a throwaway line of the first stanza into a portrait. The same reflex appears when Elspeth sees the glove: “It’s warm,” he said, afore she could speir — he answers the question before she can ask it, which tells the reader exactly what he hoped she would not ask.
Elspeth is guarded, independent and quick. She refuses help with her case (I can cope), slips at once, and is told with perfect timing that she is copin grand. She answers his teasing in kind (Ye’re grey), and she is the first to state terms: I’m hame till spring, nae mair, / An I’m no the lass that left, ye ken. Alec’s reply — I’d no want her back. She wis sair / Tae thole. An I wis glaikit then — is the nearest the poem comes to a confession, and it is an admission of mutual fault rather than a declaration of love.
The Glove
The central object is an old wool work-glove whose split thumb Elspeth darned in red thread just before she left. It is held back until the sixth stanza and described in the plainest possible terms: The auld wool glove, the thoom, the place / She’d darnt wi reid, an gaed awa. The line break after place and the flat conjunction an gaed awa let the darning and the leaving stand side by side without comment. Alec’s only explanation is that the glove is warm; the poem never suggests he kept it out of sentiment, and that restraint is what gives it force.
The glove returns in the final stanza through touch rather than sight. Alec holds out his hand, and Her thoom / Fand the reid: her thumb finds the red stitches on his thumb. The phrase deliberately echoes darnt wi reid, so that the work of her hands years ago and the touch of her hand now meet in a single word.
Desire
The reunion is physical from the third stanza on. Alec catches her; she does not step back aa that quick; his jacket is rough against her cheek and smells of the shed and of tar. In the fifth stanza each looks at the other’s body: His een gaed tae her craig: the same wee mark. / Hers, tae his shouthers, braid wi wark. The couplet does the work the brief asks of the whole poem: it shows what has survived (the same small mark at her throat, which he still knows) and what has changed (his shoulders broadened by years of labour). The desire is adult, reciprocal and unstated, and it is completed by a gesture rather than a kiss: an she held ticht.
Language as Plot
One detail is planted and paid off across three stanzas. Greeting Alec, Elspeth says It’s cold — English cold, not Scots cauld. A careful reader may take it for a slip. In the fifth stanza Alec catches it: An you’ve gaen pan-loaf in the toun. Pan-loaf is the Scots term for affectedly genteel speech, after the dearer tin-baked loaf. Her years in Dundee are therefore not reported but heard, in a single vowel, and her denial — I hivna, in the broadest Scots of the poem — is itself the joke.
The Tide
The tide is a working fact of the harbour before it is anything else. In the sixth stanza, during the silence over the glove, the water sookit ablow the pier, drawing away beneath the planks. In the last line it comes knockin in again against the mooring chains. Between those two moments, during the plainest conversation in the poem, the tide has turned. The poem never says so, and never says what the turning might mean; the title is answered only in the final line, and the word again carries the question the whole poem asks: whether two people can begin again without pretending the years between did not happen.
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The Burnsian Tradition in the Poem
The poem is not modelled on any single poem by Robert Burns, and it borrows none of his lines or characters. What it takes from him is a set of habits.
Vernacular authority. Scots is the poem’s medium, not its decoration. The syntax, negatives (didna, couldna, hivna), verb forms (gaed, fand, liftit) and idiom (pit her coat tae richts, sair tae thole, gin ye’re by) are Scots throughout, and the vocabulary belongs to a working harbour: smirr, glaur, partan creels, moorin chain.
Sympathy for working people. Alec’s trade is visible in his smell, his shoulders and his glove; Elspeth’s is audible in her speech. Neither is idealised, and neither is a symbol of anything.
Humour that reveals character. As in Burns’s love songs, the jokes are never at the expense of the vulnerable. They come from the gap between what people say and what they do: a man checking a plank, a woman who can cope, a neighbour who knows exactly why Alec is on the pier.
Tenderness and sensuality held in balance. Burns’s love songs are frank about the body without being coarse, and tender without being sentimental. The poem aims at the same register: the cheek against the jacket, the glance at the throat, the hand held tight.
The local made universal. A few minutes on a wet pier in late autumn carry the large question of whether love can survive time and change.
Where the poem departs from the tradition, it does so deliberately. It has no closing moral, no apostrophe and no refrain; its stanza (six four-beat lines rhymed ABABCC) is the familiar sixain of English and Scots song rather than Burns’s signature Standard Habbie; and its world is contemporary rather than eighteenth-century. The aim is a living Scots voice in the tradition, not a pastiche of it.
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Meaning and Uniqueness
Many poems of reunion end with love restored as if the years had not passed. This one refuses that consolation. The lovers do not return to who they were; both say so. I’m no the lass that left is answered by I’d no want her back. What the poem offers instead is a beginning that acknowledges the gap: an invitation to the shed, a Mebbe. Aye., a walk home that may or may not lead anywhere.
Its distinctiveness lies in how much is carried by things and how little by statement. A plank, a glove, a vowel, a mark on the skin and the sound of water under a pier do the emotional work that another poem would give to declarations. Even the comedy is structural: the pretext of the first stanza, Davie’s question and Alec’s one-word answer form a single joke across the poem that is also a portrait of a man who cannot say what he came for.
The ending is a gesture and a sound. Her thumb finds the red thread; she holds tight; the tide comes knocking in again. Nothing is promised, and nothing needs to be.
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Form and Prosody
Eight six-line stanzas, forty-eight lines, without refrain. The metre is a four-beat accentual song metre: every line can be read on four beats. In nine lines one beat falls on a promoted weak syllable, and three lines (21, 29 and 33) carry a secondary stress that can be heard as a fifth. Stanza 4, line 6 is deliberately short (six syllables, four beats carried by a pause), so that Alec’s one-word reply lands alone.
The rhyme scheme is ABABCC in every stanza. The rhymes assume a general Scots reading with the first pronunciations listed in the Dictionaries of the Scots Language (again [;;;en], awa [;;w;;]); on that reading every rhyme is full. Saw/awa rhymes within any single dialect, because both words share the same vowel, except in Lothian and Roxburgh, where awa is [;;we]. Chain/again becomes a half-rhyme for speakers who say [;;;;n] or [;;;;n].
The register is contemporary literary Lowland Scots on a Mid Scots base, with consistent spelling (wis, aa, haun, ye, an, o, tae). Elspeth’s single English cold in the second stanza is deliberate and is taken up in the fifth. The characters, village and story are fictional.