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Terrible tyke

  • Last seen on Sep 22 5:42 AM 2006. Member since February 20, 2006.
  • I have 2 comments, 2 poems

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  • on Rule, Britannia! (With Variations) by James Thomson, on September 22, 2006
    It is sometimes hard to believe that this unofficial signature tune for the Proms was written almost three centuries ago. Unless that is one actually reads the words.
    So obviously written as a rabble-rousing paen of praise for a nation in time of war when Britain was involved in a dynastic struggle with the Stuarts for the Crown and had to repel invasion threats from France and from Spain in support of Prince Charles Edward Stuart.
    Would a modern poet get away with such lines as
    As the loud blast that tears the skies,
    Serves but to root thy native oak.
    or
    To thee belongs the rural reign;
    Thy cities shall with commerce shine:
    One wonders how it went down with readers when first written and if it would have survived had Thomson not had the sense to turn it into a song and if someone had not later written that marvellous tune.


  • on Sailor Town by Cicely Fox Smith, on September 22, 2006
    This is one of Miss Fox Smith's best poems. It eloquently describes the atmosphere of Sailor Town, the area of a port anywhere in the world, that was dominated by those who earned ther living from the sea. The latitude and longitude might change but the nature of the place didn't. At first.
    Then
    Along the wharves in sailor town a singing whisper goes
    Line 1 might readily refer to the changes that were occuring as sail gave way to steam and some of the romance was disappearing. The very times Miss Fox Smith lived through and catalogued so well.
    The final verse, sadly, is all that's left of real Sailor Towns these days . . . A dream.