The Spanish have the Brava and Del Sol, The French have the Vermeille and d’Azur, The British have…the South, the East and West – They’re simply places for the trains to roll. They sound so innocent and amateur, Before the marketeers have had them dressed.
They gave us the Jurassic, don’t forget. What next ? The Coccolith Coast of Dover ? The Devonian Coast of…I don’t know…Dundee ? The Windfarm Coast of Wales – it could be yet, The Yorkshire Bladderwracks – think it over, The Seaside Coast of Seaton-by-the-Sea…
When the cuckoo changes his tune, it’s June, The month with the longest afternoon, When the golden hour will last an hour, And the floral clocks are forever in flower – It’s hardly worth the daisies to close When a good night’s sleep is barely a doze, And the nightingales must rush their glee Till the sparrows peep at the crack of three.
Every morning, all Summer long, We tie-less masses struggle aboard The dawdling trains in the hungry platforms, Like some suburban zombie horde. Then staring out at rusty sidings, Ragged lots, and the empty sweltering sky, As the weaving rails must dance and join, And the shapeless buddleia bushes go by.
Every evening, all Summer long, We shirtsleeve masses of sweaty sardines Cram airless trains on commuter corridors, Staring at space or staring at screens. Some folks ride on gilded viaducts, Mutely surveying the city from high, While we in the troughs watch the overgrown fences, As grasping bindweeds bushes go by.
She was born at Solsticetide, And so they named her Summer – Blond and bright and beautiful, And all the Spring a comer. But once the longest day was done, She felt the nights draw in, Just waiting for the Winter low To let the next begin.
Now I will barely notice how The evenings have crept, Until the clocks have messed about To show how dusk has leapt. But then, she saw a greater change Than I, from day to day, For she grew up in Lerwick town And I down Jersey way.
Ancient wisdom always seems To favour pure and nat’ral artefacts, The stuff of philosophic dreams Of unmined hills and untapped cataracts – Yet crying for such simple ways From modern lives of iron, wells and mills, They lounge and think away their days, While harder-working peers must hone their skills To hew and dig and chop and grind, And turn the world into a workshop floor – To build the surplus so a mind Has food enough to ponder nat’ral lore.
Taoist, I’m told, should be said with a ‘D’, As ‘Daoist’, as voiced in the throat. By why must it be then written with ‘T’, To wear both a cloak and a coat ?
Perhaps the Chinese say it between, But not so our English tongue – So we must decide which way we lean, And write it like it is sung.
A miniature cricket, or maybe a ’hopper, Has found its way into my flat. I thought that the spiders would send it a-cropper, But they’re having nothing of that ! It could be a locust, but that would be holier – Easy to spot though – bright green on magnolia !
I feared it was munching my windowsill cactus, But I see no evidence there. I guess the poor thing must be fasting in practice – My ceiling-top cupboards are bare ! It doesn’t have wings, so it’s still just a young – It’s legs are un-hopped, and its song is unsung.
Thirteen copies were written, at least, And probably many more – All passed from bishop to sheriff to lord, And pinned-up, read, and, finally, stored, Then rotted or burned or thoroughly creased, Until we were left with four.
But then, for many centuries, Their words were out-of-date – Their scutages and fishing-weirs Belonged to long-forgotten years, And busy parli’mentaries Have moved on the debate.
Their Latin text is cramped and clipped, With not an inch to spare. And just like half the baron knights, We cannot even read the rights We’re gifted by this foreign script – We have to trust they’re there.
But so what if the parchments fade ? They’re passing, mortal things – It ain’t the laws that they imparted, But the movement that they started – In their image we are made, Who bow to laws, not kings.
“We will remove entirely the kinsmen of Gerard d’Athée from their bailiwicks, so that in future they may hold no bailiwick in England. We will remove from the kingdom all foreign knights who have come to the detriment of the kingdom.”
Magna Carta, 1215
English rights for English barons: That was the cry at liberty’s birth – And though they’d gag at the thought, would the barons, Their rights would trickle down to the serfs. Slowly, slowly, and bloody hard-won, Till the days of the tyrant-kings were done.
But nothing but exile for Gerard d’Athée, Farewell to Engelard, can’t let you stay, Goodbye to Guy, and to Guy, too-da-loo, Au revoir, Peter, and Andrew, adieu, And Geoffrey and Geoffrey, your fate is the same: Deported by charter in liberty’s name. And Philip (and brothers), return to your sires, Ex-Sheriff of Derby- and Nottingham- shires.
So there it was: the English disease: Scraping-up some scapegoats for their sleeping in our bed. But never for a moment did we get up off our knees To kick out at the barons – so we kicked the French instead. This lack of disquiet from locals is telling: Just tugging at forelocks instead of rebelling.
But surely things have improved ? It isn’t as though the world hasn’t moved: It started a wave that has kept rolling on, So we’ve far more rights now than had even King John. But all the un-English may find us less caring, For English-born freedoms were not made for sharing. So tell, Magna Carta: just what are you for ?, But a thing to suspend when we’re neck-deep in war.
The quote above is actually elided from half of clauses 50 (which does indeed go on to name nine individuals as well as two additional sets of ‘brothers’), and also part of clause 51 which continues the thought – although in the original, the clauses were not infact numbered. The first to do so was George Ferrers’ English translation of 1534, while the modern numbering dates from William Blackstone in 1759.
Rhyming Couplets 