Gone Are The Days
Impossible to call a lamb a lambkin
or say eftsoons or spell you ladye.
My shining armour bleeds when it's scratched;
I blow the nose that's part of my visor.
When I go pricking o'er the plain
I say Eightpence please to the sad conductress.
The towering landscape you live in has printed
on its portcullis Bed and breakfast.
I don't regret it. There are wildernesses
enough in Rose Street or the Grassmarket
where dragons' breaths are methylated
and social workers trap the unwary.
So don't expect me, lady with no e,
to look at a lamb and feel lambkin
or give me a down look because I bought
my greaves and cuisses at Marks and Spencers.
Pishtushery's out. But oh, how my heart swells
to see you perched, perjink, on a bar stool.
And though epics are shrunk to epigrams, let me
buy you a love potion, a gin, a double.
Commentary
I love MacCaig for the same things, always… the tenderness, the humour, and oh, the Romance that’s still utterly romantic even when it’s dedicated to a ‘lady with no e’. The sensuous brunt of the words, his obvious revelling in the sound and feel of ‘perjink’ and ‘greaves and cuisses’, the whole picture of him ‘pricking o’er the plain’ and gently saying ‘eightpence please’ to the conductress. I don’t care, even if epics are shrunk to epigrams, he’s my hero.
— Amulya
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From the Wondering Minstrels mailing list, 1999–2008.
Anustup Datta · 31 December 1998
Absolutely delightful, Thomas - there’s a little more about MacCaig online at
[broken link] http://www.geocities.com/william_brodie/maccaig/backgr.html
The site also has a fair collection of his poetry. I am reproducing below his justly-celebrated
Frogs
Frogs sit more solid
than anything sits. In mid-leap they are
parachutists falling
in a free fall. They die on roads
with arms across their chests and
heads high.
I love frogs that sit
like Buddha, that fall without
parachutes, that die
like Italian tenors.
Above all, I love them because,
pursued in water, they never
panic so much that they fail
to make stylish triangles
with their ballet dancer’s
legs.
- Norman MacCaig
I think the comparison with Italian tenors is just perfect - makes you really sit up and chuckle.
Anustup
Anne Hobby · 5 January 2005
I’m not sure what led me to come across this particular poem in the archives, but I did, and now I have a question. If anyone can explain to me what “methylated” means in this sense please let me know!! I asked a friend of mine who is studying chemical engineering but all he gave me were a bunch of symbols of compounds and such which really didn’t help in my understanding of that line. Thanks :) Anne
Martin DeMello · 6 January 2005
The reference is to “methylated spirits”, i.e. alcohol intended for something other than drinking, and therefore denatured with methanol, and sometimes a colouring agent as well so that people don’t drink it by mistake (the point of doing all this is that as a drink, alcohol is heavily taxed, but as a chemical it isn’t). MacCaig is referring to the alcoholics (usually homeless) who drink it anyway (not recommended - you’ll go blind).
Judy Hindley · 31 July 2007
Just to say thanks for putting out these poems. It was a joy to find ‘Frogs’, which I thought I’d lost. Do you have ‘Heron’? Go well to you all.