Tonight I recall Amy Macdonald’s stirring intonation, fifteen years ago, of “Flower of Scotland” (it preceded a defeat at Hampden Park).
I heard the anthem sung again today before Scotland played Denmark. Too rousing, I thought. Just watch, the Scots’ll come out pistols blazing and then get drubbed again. And, after McTominay scored a chilena in minute 3, Denmark did outplay the Scots, up and down the field – even, from m. 61, a man short. But the Scots, against the run of play, converted a tap-in (from a near-olímpico), then a blast from outside the box, and finally a lob from the center circle. They won, 4 to 2, and qualified for the World Cup. Yes, they were poor, but they clattered over the line. ESPN’s Scottish pundits were delighted.
⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯
O Flower of Scotland
When will we see
Your like again
That fought and died for
Your wee bit hill and glen
And stood against him
Proud Edward’s army
And sent him homeward
To think again
The hills are bare now
And autumn leaves
Lie thick and still
O’er land that’s lost now
Which those so dearly held
That stood against him
Proud Edward’s army
And sent him homeward
To think again
Those days are past now
And in the past
they must remain
But we can still rise now
And be the nation again
That stood against him
Proud Edward’s army
And sent him homeward
To think again
⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯
(Roy Williamson, 1967)
Not Robbie Burns, not William McGonagall, just ordinary folk dreaming of having thrashed the English centuries ago and of maybe doing it again some day.
Happy St. Valentine’s Day. Samuel and Daniel are with grandparents. Karin & I – accompanied by sleeping Abel – romantically gorged at the local diner (I ordered Mexican food and pancakes). We knew it’d be a quiet venue; there were just a handful of couples. But all races and persuasions were represented, including people with MAGA hats.
Afterward, I remarked to Karin how nicely everyone got along. “They all ignored each other,” she said.
Then I realized, not everyone shares my idea of “getting along.”
Back at home, we read love poems to each other.
♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦
“Forget-Me-Not,” by William McGonagall:
⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯
A gallant knight and his betroth’d bride,
Were walking one day by a river side,
They talk’d of love, and they talk’d of war,
And how very foolish lovers are.
At length the bride to the knight did say,
“There have been many young ladies led astray
By believing in all their lovers said,
And you are false to me I am afraid.”
“No, Ellen, I was never false to thee,
I never gave thee cause to doubt me;
I have always lov’d thee and do still,
And no other woman your place shall fill.”
“Dear Edwin, it may be true, but I am in doubt,
But there’s some beautiful flowers here about,
Growing on the other side of the river,
But how to get one, I cannot discover.”
“Dear Ellen, they seem beautiful indeed,
But of them, dear, take no heed;
Because they are on the other side,
Besides, the river is deep and wide.”
“Dear Edwin, as I doubt your love to be untrue,
I ask one favour now from you:
Go! fetch me a flower from across the river,
Which will prove you love me more than ever.”
“Dear Ellen! I will try and fetch you a flower
If it lies within my power
To prove that I am true to you,
And what more can your Edwin do?”
So he leap’d into the river wide,
And swam across to the other side,
To fetch a flower for his young bride,
Who watched him eagerly on the other side.
So he pluck’d a flower right merrily
Which seemed to fill his heart with glee,
That it would please his lovely bride;
But, alas! he never got to the other side.
For when he tried to swim across,
All power of his body he did loss,
But before he sank in the river wide,
He flung the flowers to his lovely bride.
And he cried, “Oh, heaven! hard is my lot,
My dearest Ellen! Forget me not:
For I was ever true to you,
My dearest Ellen! I bid thee adieu!”
Then she wrung her hands in wild despair,
Until her cries did rend the air;
And she cried, “Edwin, dear, hard is out lot,
But I’ll name this flower Forget-me-not.
“And I’ll remember thee while I live,
And to no other man my hand I’ll give,
And I will place my affection on this little flower,
And it will solace me in a lonely hour.”
⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯
♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦
“May Colvin,” from The Oxford Book of Ballads (ed. Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch):
⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯
False Sir John a-wooing came
To a maid of beauty fair;
May Colvin was this lady’s name,
Her father’s only heir.
He woo’d her but, he woo’d her ben [Editor’s note: both in the outer and inner rooms],
He woo’d her in the ha’;
Until he got the lady’s consent
To mount and ride awa’.
“Go fetch me some of your father’s gold,
And some of your mother’s fee,
And I’ll carry you into the north land,
And there I’ll marry thee.”
She’s gane to her father’s coffers
Where all his money lay,
And she’s taken the red, and she’s left the white,
And so lightly she’s tripp’d away.
She’s gane to her father’s stable
Where all the steeds did stand,
And she’s taken the best, and she’s left the warst
So, the lawns aren’t looking good. They ought to have been cut two or three weeks ago. I left gasoline in the mower all winter, and the mower won’t start.
Our air conditioner isn’t working, either. But we have been using fans, and the house is quite livable.
Since Daniel was born, I’ve gained approx. 25 lbs.
Good people of high and low degree, / I pray ye all be advised by me, / And don’t believe what the clergy doth say, / That by going to the theatre you will be led astray.
No, in the theatre we see vice punished and virtue rewarded, / The villain either hanged or shot, and his career retarded; / Therefore the theatre is useful in every way, / And has no inducement to lead the people astray.
Because therein we see the end of the bad men, / Which must appall the audience – deny it who can / Which will help to retard them from going astray, / While witnessing in a theatre a moral play.
The theatre ought to be encouraged in every respect, / Because example is better than precept, / And is bound to have a greater effect / On the minds of theatre-goers in every respect.
Sometimes in theatres, guilty creatures there have been / Struck to the soul by the cunning of the scene; / By witnessing a play wherein murder is enacted, / They were proven to be murderers, they felt so distracted,
And left the theatre, they felt so much fear, / Such has been the case, so says Shakespeare. / And such is my opinion, I will venture to say, / That murderers will quake with fear on seeing murder in a play.
Hamlet discovered his father’s murderer by a play / That he composed for the purpose, without dismay, / And the king, his uncle, couldn’t endure to see that play, / And he withdrew from the scene without delay.
And by that play the murder was found out, / And clearly proven, without any doubt; / Therefore, stage representation has a greater effect / On the minds of the people than religious precept.
We see in Shakespeare’s tragedy of Othello, which is sublime, / Cassio losing his lieutenancy through drinking wine; / And, in delirium and grief, he exclaims: / “Oh, that men should put an enemy in their mouths to steal away their brains!”
A young man in London went to the theatre one night / To see the play of George Barnwell, and he got a great fright; / He saw George Barnwell murder his uncle in the play, / And he had resolved to murder his uncle, but was stricken with dismay.
But when he saw George Barnwell was to be hung / The dread of murdering his uncle tenaciously to him clung, / That he couldn’t murder and rob his uncle dear, / Because the play he saw enacted filled his heart with fear.
And, in conclusion, I will say without dismay, / Visit the theatre without delay, / Because the theatre is a school of morality, / And hasn’t the least tendency to lead to prodigality.
As I stood upon London Bridge and viewed the mighty throng / Of thousands of people in cabs and ’busses rapidly whirling along, / All furiously driving to and fro, / Up one street and down another as quick as they could go:
Then I was struck with the discordant sound of human voices there, / Which seemed to me like wild geese cackling in the air: / And the river Thames is a most beautiful sight, / To see the steamers sailing upon it by day and by night.
And the Tower of London is most gloomy to behold, / And the crown of England lies there, begemmed with precious stones and gold; / King Henry the Sixth was murdered there by the Duke of Glo’ster, / And when he killed him with his sword he called him an impostor.
St. Paul’s Cathedral is the finest building that ever I did see, / There’s no building can surpass it in the city of Dundee, / Because it’s magnificent to behold, / With its beautiful dome and spire glittering like gold.
And as for Nelson’s Monument that stands in Trafalgar Square, / It is a most stately monument I most solemnly declare, / And towering defiantly very high, / Which arrests strangers’ attention while passing by.
Then there’s two beautiful water-fountains spouting up very high, / Where the weary traveller can drink when he feels dry; / And at the foot of the monument there’s three bronze lions in grand array, / Enough to make the stranger’s heart throb with dismay.
Then there’s Mr Spurgeon, a great preacher, which no one dare gainsay, / I went to hear him preach on the Sabbath-day, / And he made my heart feel light and gay, / When I heard him preach and pray.
And the Tabernacle was crowded from ceiling to floor, / And many were standing outside the door; / He is an eloquent preacher I honestly declare, / And I was struck with admiration as on him I did stare.
Then there’s Petticoat Lane I venture to say, / It’s a wonderful place on the Sabbath-day; / There wearing-apparel can be bought to suit the young or old, / For the ready cash, silver, coppers, or gold.
Oh! mighty city of London! you are wonderful to see, / And thy beauties no doubt fill the tourist’s heart with glee; / But during my short stay, and while wandering there, / Mr Spurgeon was the only man I heard speaking proper English I do declare.
This month’s poem is titled “Attempted Assassination of the Queen.” I thought of waiting to post it until the Ides of March. On that day, however, I’ll be in Austin, Texas, and I expect I’ll want to write about eating barbequed steaks or about attending SXSW or other things of that nature.
⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯
God prosper long our noble Queen,
And long may she reign!
Maclean he tried to shoot her,
But it was all in vain.
For God He turned the ball aside
Maclean aimed at her head;
And he felt very angry
Because he didn’t shoot her dead.
There’s a divinity that hedges a king,
And so it does seem,
And my opinion is, it has hedged
Our most gracious Queen.
Maclean must be a madman,
Which is obvious to be seen,
Or else he wouldn’t have tried to shoot
Our most beloved Queen.
Victoria is a good Queen,
Which all her subjects know,
And for that God has protected her
From all her deadly foes.
She is noble and generous,
Her subjects must confess;
There hasn’t been her equal
Since the days of good Queen Bess.
Long may she be spared to roam
Among the bonnie Highland floral,
And spend many a happy day
In the palace of Balmoral.
Because she is very kind
To the old women there,
And allows them bread, tea, and sugar,
And each one to get a share.
And when they know of her coming,
Their hearts feel overjoy’d,
Because, in general, she finds work
For men that’s unemploy’d.
And she also gives the gipsies money
While at Balmoral, I’ve been told,
And, mind ye, seldom silver,
But very often gold.
I hope God will protect her
By night and by day,
At home and abroad,
When she’s far away.
May He be as a hedge around her,
As He’s been all along,
And let her live and die in peace
Is the end of my song.
⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯
(William McGonagall)
♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦
Our versifier was hardly the sole insane poet devoted to the Queen (though perhaps he was one of the more benign ones). This Wikipedia article tells of the events upon which his poem was based:
On 2 March 1882, Roderick Maclean, a disgruntled poet apparently offended by Victoria’s refusal to accept one of his poems, shot at the Queen as her carriage left Windsor railway station. Two schoolboys from Eton College struck him with their umbrellas until he was hustled away by a policeman. Victoria was outraged when he was found not guilty by reason of insanity, but was so pleased by the many expressions of loyalty after the attack that she said it was “worth being shot at – to see how much one is loved.”
The article describes several other attempts to murder Queen Victoria. In one incident worthy of a Law and Order episode, the Queen allowed herself to be used as “bait” to help to catch the perpetrator:
On 29 May 1842, Victoria was riding in a carriage along The Mall, London, when John Francis aimed a pistol at her but the gun did not fire; he escaped. The following day, Victoria drove the same route, though faster and with a greater escort, in a deliberate attempt to provoke Francis to take a second aim and catch him in the act. As expected, Francis shot at her, but he was seized by plainclothes policemen, and convicted of high treason.
For his crime, Francis was transported to Australia. He died at a ripe old age in Melbourne, which is in the state of … Victoria.
Karin & I’ll be married in one month and one week.
People ask me, have you any misgivings? No, I haven’t. Of the two of us, I’m clearly getting the better deal.
This doesn’t mean I never worry. I dreamed, last night, that we were at the church and that the ceremony was about to begin. I’d forgotten the suit I was meant to wear; and so I scurried from uncle to uncle, asking to swap outfits.
The trip would cost us next to nothing: Karin’s grandpa would supply the airline miles. Alas, his travel agent tried to burden us with tours and hotels. The price became prohibitive.
We ended up booking the trip ourselves – to Utah – whose scenery is also lovely, but very different. This will be my chance to finally hunker down and study the Book of Mormon.