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“Marion Bernstein has a good claim to being the greatest Scottish feminist we’ve never heard of … Her voice – neglected for so long – is just the kind we need to hear as we consider the writers who invented Scotland, and the hopes we have for our country in the future.” 
— Scottish Review of Books

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Although her reputation now rests on her poems on women’s rights, the Glasgow poet Marion Bernstein (1846–1906) recognised little distinction between gender equality and social equality. She valued her fellow poets, many of whom were from the working classes, and she populated her poems with an array of ordinary citizens: postmen, riveters, fishermen, street musicians, even a victim of intemperance. In her enlightened poem ‘Human Rights’ she advocated universal equality and gave her vision of a world run by women:

We’d give fair play, let come what might, 
To he or she folk, black or white, 
And haste the reign of Human Right.

A Song of Glasgow Town contains all of Bernstein’s 198 published poems, along with a detailed introduction to her life and work, and extensive notes explaining the background to each poem. These verses provide a fascinating insight into Glasgow in the late Victorian age, at a time of unprecedented social and economic change.

Edward H. Cohen is the William R. Kenan, Jr., Professor of English at Rollins College.
Anne R. Fertig was a Colling-Clint scholar at Rollins College and is currently a Fulbright scholar at the University of Glasgow.
Linda Fleming received her PhD in Modern History from the University of Glasgow and is a research fellow at the University of Edinburgh.

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CONTENTS 

Acknowledgements 
A Note on the Text 
Introduction 

Poems published 28 February 1874 to 8 April 1876 and collected in Mirren’s Musings 

1. On Hearing ‘Auld Lang Syne’ 
2. Wanted in Glasgow. 
3. ‘The Wetched Sex’ 
4. Cremation. 
5. The Sulky Man 
6. To the Editor of the ‘Weekly Mail’ 
7. Fashions and Follies 
8. Squaring the Circle 
9. Love and Death and the ‘Weekly Mail’ 
10. A Romance of the Morgue 
11. To an Atheist 
12. The Donkeys’ Duel 
13. Reply to J. B. M. [‘Oh! J. B. M., you must be stupid’] 
14. To D’Odeurs 
15. The River of Time 
16. Manly Sports 
17. A Rule to Work Both Ways 
18. Quite Bewildered 
19. Changes 
20. Reply to J. B. M. [‘Dear J. B. M., I was but joking’] 
21. The Thunderstorm 
22. A Song for the Working Man 
23. A Song of Glasgow Town 
24. Oh, Scenes of Beauty! 
25. The Danger of Delay 
26. Sigh Not for Yesterday 
27. Wanted A Husband 
28. On the Closing Year 
29. On New Year’s Day 
30. The Hero of the Clyde 
31. To Amatory Poets 
32. The Best Kind of Wife 
33. An Able Advocate 
34. The Well of Truth 
35. ‘Ending in Smoke!’ 
36. Thoughts.  
37. Courtship on Valentine’s Morning. 
38. Come Again, Come Again, Beautiful Spring 
39. A Question 
40. Woman’s Rights and Wrongs 
41. Rules for House-Hunting 
42. ‘Move On!’ 
43. Reflections 
44. Look Forward and Look Upward. 
45. A Doubtful Story 
46. Come Back to Me, Ye Happy Dreams 
47. Married and ‘Settled’ 
48. The Heather and the Broom 
49. On Receiving the First Flowers of the Garden from a Friend in London
50. I Really Don’t Know What to Say 
51. A Slight Inconsistency 
52. In These Steam-Engine Days 
53. A Dream 
54. The Music of the Streets 
55. Song [‘Oh, bring me a bunch of flowers to-day’] 
56. Gas on the Stair 
57. The Giant-Killer 
58. Advice to Anxiety 
59. Sonnet [‘Fade not! oh, autumn flowers!’] 
60. Musical Reflections 
61. Oh, Caledonia! Thou Art Fair 
62. Oh, I Wish I Were a Swallow! 
63. Blame Not the Broken-Hearted 
64. Servants of God, Awake! 
65. An Appeal 
66. Sonnet, On Receiving a Bouquet 
67. A Reply to ‘Twenty-Eight’ 
68. Hope 
69. Too Soon Forgotten 
70. Far Out at Sea 
71. Soaring Upwards to the Light 
72. Musings 
73. Fame 
74. The Fugitive Slave 
75. Sonnet [‘Life’s sunny summer time’] 

Poems published 25 April 1874 to 6 May 1876 but not collected in Mirren’s Musings 

76. ‘Oh! I Wish That All Women Had Power to Vote’ 
77. ‘I Am Very Glad that I Can Say’ 
78. What the Pope Said 
79. What Somebody Said 
80. My Book 
81. An Awful Mistake 
82. My Own Dear Native Home 
83. ‘He Promised that Either By Hook or By Crook’ 
84. Come Back, Sweet Muse 

Poems collected in Mirren’s Musings, June 1876, but not previously published 

85. Robin Donn’s Lament 
86. A Woman’s Logic 
87. The Great Passover 
88. Epigram [‘Love’s a first-rate theme for rhyming’] 
89. To the Editor 
90. A Meditation [‘Again I see the radiant skies’] 
91. Cremating a Mother-in-Law 
92. Epigram [‘If a man has more malice than wit’] 
93. Oh Stay, Sweet Summer, Stay 
94. First Paraphrase 
95. Teach Me How to Keep Thy Way 
96. Friday Evening Hymn 
97. At Sabbath Sunset 
98. To Annie on Her Birthday 
99. The Three Guides 
100. On Toothache 
101. Mother, Weep Not For Thy Child 
102. Sabbath Eve 
103. Sonnet, To the Stars 
104. A Sleepless Night 
105. The Seventh Day 
106. The Sabbath of the Lord 
107. A Song of Summer 
108. Human Rights 
109. Reply to the Foregoing 
110. The Swallow 

Poems published 8 July 1876 to 6 January 1906, subsequent to the printing of Mirren’s Musings 

111. Just Heaven, Defend Us 
112. A Leap-Year Romance 
113. The Sun Shines on For Ever 
114. Onward Yet! Upward Yet! 
115. Nature’s Aristocracy. 
116. Our Cat Can Say ‘Im-ph-m’ 
117. On the Death of ‘Rhyming Willie’ 
118. Capricious May. 
119. Justice, Mercy, and Truth 
120. Welcome to May 
121. Birthday Musings 
122. The Govan Riveters’ Strike 
123. Marion’s Reply to M. M’M 
124. Light the Furnace Again 
125. Heartsease 
126. Rest 
127. Sonnet: On the Prediction of Extraordinary Darkness &c. 
128. A Rainy Day Flitting 
129. The Victim of Intemperance 
130. Home Music 
131. New Year’s Musings 
132. Mirren’s Autobiography. 
133. Leap Year Valentines 
134. The Resurrection of the Flowers. 
135. An Evening Song 
136. Toiling Upwards 
137. Happy Dreaming 
138. To the Great Inventor 
139. Song [‘In the morning sunlight’] 
140. The Scottish Emigrant 
141. The East Coast Fishermen 
142. The Flower Sermon 
143. Beatitudes 
144. The Pointsman 
145. The Light-Glint on Loch Lomond. 
146. A Woman’s Plea 
147. Robert Burns [‘While others will tell of thy triumphs’] 
148. Shipwrecked 
149. Far Away in the West 
150. The Star of Bethlehem 
151. The Highland Laird’s Song 
152. Nearer to Thee 
153. The Christmas Party 
154. New-Year Thoughts 
155. The Death of Douglas 
156. A Dream of Rest 
157. On the Franchise Demonstration of the 6th Inst. 
158. A Birthday Meditation 
159. Answer to M. A. Smith 
160. Sonnet To Mary Cross 
161. Coffining the Pauper 
162. A Shower of Falling Stars 
163. Patience 
164. The Scottish Marseillaise 
165. Wanted 
166. Acrostic Sonnet – Elizabeth Mouat. 
167. On the Death of a Favourite Pet that Had Every Virtue and No Fault 
168. Nothing New. 
169. Robert Burns [‘Oft it moves my indignation’] 
170. A Summer Day 
171. The Name of the Lord. 
172. Forward March! 
173. Vanity Fair 
174. The Beautiful Spring 
175. A Wish 
176. Apotheosis 
177. To a Captive Bird 
178. Treasures Gratis 
179. Poor Pussy’s Song 
180. A Vision of the Cross 
181. Have Patience 
182. Ye Happy Birds 
183. Peace at the Last 
184. The Passing Years 
185. Lines on the Death of Dr W. T. M’Auslane 
186. ‘In the Old Likeness’ 
187. The Horrors ofWar 
188. Blue 
189. The Dark Before the Dawn 
190. A Fable 
191. Half-Way Down the Shadowy Valley 
192. Willie Brewed a Peck o’ Maut 
193. To King Edward on His Coronation 
194. St Vincent Loch 
195. ‘Je Pense a Toi’ 
196. Song of a ‘Shut In’ 
197. Sonnet: The Rainbow 
198. A Meditation [‘Year after year is passing by’] 

Notes on Individual Poems 
Selected Bibliography

Cover image: “Autumn”, by Bessie MacNicol (1869–1904) 
Courtesy Aberdeen Art Gallery & Museums Collections. 
Cover design: Mark Blackadder.