To all my English mates
Did you know that St. George is your patron saint?
Well, he is! And he’s even got a whole day in his honour — and your honour, dare I add, as a proud nation with a rather impressive wang … er, I mean past.
However, the fine chaps at the English Heritage have verily tarnished the glory of the day, commissioning a poem from Liverpool poet Brian Patten.
I present you with this excerpt:
St George was out walking
He met a dragon on a hill,
It was wise and wonderful
Too glorious to kill
[…]
St George was in awe of it
It was a thing apart
He hid the sleeping dragon
Inside every English heart
This is lousy stuff coming from the land that brought us John Donne, W. H. Auden, T. S. Eliot, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, and Ted Hughes.
Please, my dear Rob and friends, I deplore you, save the ruddy-cheeked face of your fine nation! Enter this BBC contest with a smashing St. George poem of your own.
Raise a pint, put pen to paper, and give this silly nationalist drivel the heave-ho!
(Even that notorious commie Billy Bragg wants you to be proud of England again.)
Ways to get my interest and make me reblog things: mention me by name, especially “dear Rob”.
I’m not feeling hugely English today, what with having had tapas for lunch, but I agree that the above poem is, without a shadow of a doubt, shit. The problem is, our Poet Laureate (Andrew Motion) wouldn’t have done much better. Private Eye apes him mercilessly in most issues.
I was thinking about writing a limerick for this, but as it’s the name of an Irish county and just sounds Irish, I don’t think it’s appropriate. Likewise, a haiku would just be silly. I was thinking of a Shakespearean pentameter, but I don’t think I’m up to that level.
Let’s have a bash:
A man, much greater than me, once said:
When those around you lose their head,
And yet you keep yours together,
the Earth will be yours, my son, forever.
By such a mantra do we define ourselves,
As English, St George’s sons themselves.
Our saint, who killed the dragon,
To whom I toast with my flagon.
Legendary is our stiff upper lip,
Along with our inability to tip.
Yet we stand strong and undeterred,
Across the world, our language always heard.
What is it that separates us from the rest?
Is it the red rose upon our breast?
Or the cross upon our flag?
My vote is for the humble teabag.
Yes, we may have our many faults,
But we are proud, proud to be English.