Chin up, little Remainer, says Britannia, I've got a poem for you! All written on this big piece of paper. It goes like this:
Say not the struggle naught availeth,
The labour and the wounds are vain,
The enemy faints not, nor faileth,
And as things have been they remain.
If hopes were dupes, fears may be liars;
It may be, in yon smoke concealed,
Your comrades chase e'en now the fliers,
And, but for you, possess the field.
For while the tired waves, vainly breaking
Seem here no painful inch to gain,
Far back through creeks and inlets making,
Comes silent, flooding in, the main.
And not by eastern windows only,
When daylight comes, comes in the light,
In front the sun climbs slow, how slowly,
But westward, look, the land is ... um ... decidedly foggy.
Arthur Hugh Clough(ish)
I like that bit about chasing stray leaflets in the smoke! Very evocative, very Brexit-y, don't you think? Reminds me of that other bit in his chum Matthew Arnold's poem, Dover Beach:
Well, at least you can stop wearing that idiotic hat. And think about me: I suppose I'm going to have to start carrying that stupid shield and that useless fucking toasting-fork around again. Anyway... Fancy a chlorinated English muffin, dirt-cheap, and all the way from America?
And we are here as on a darkling plainThere's certainly been a lot of ignorance and clashing about! But, what's that you say? It's all over? We're leaving today?? Oh dear, I'm so sorry about that. It seems like the struggle availed naught, after all, and that as things have been they will not remain... Which is not what you wanted, is it? Hmm, maybe the poem was intended for the other lot? I suppose they did rather want to look westward... Certainly, this is not the outcome I'd hoped for – I rather enjoyed getting together with my Euro-sisters – but you can't win 'em all, can you? And your side didn't exactly play a blinder, did they?
Swept with confused alarms of struggle and flight,
Where ignorant armies clash by night.
Well, at least you can stop wearing that idiotic hat. And think about me: I suppose I'm going to have to start carrying that stupid shield and that useless fucking toasting-fork around again. Anyway... Fancy a chlorinated English muffin, dirt-cheap, and all the way from America?
5 comments:
Grim, grim day, Mr C. They were never going to play a blinder were they, but they could at least have turned up on time, with a full kit for the whole team and had half a go at playing the same game! Too much to ask, apparently. Come on, though, head up (wearing a different style of hat) we need to put in more hours at the training ground and be better prepared for the next tournament.
DM,
TBH, now it's done, I'm quite curious to see how it turns out... Badly, I expect, but I feel I can watch the whole thing with a level of equanimity: there's no point in spending one's remaining (!) years wondering and worrying about "the next time". This will take at least a decade to work its way through the body politic, probably more. As far as I recall, I voted against remaining in 1975 (it was union policy at the time), so...
Mike
I consider it possible that the fliers may not be pamphlets, however prescient the sentiment! But an excellent effort on your part!
I am more concerned with the brightness of the land to the west, which puts my in mind of Simon&Garfunkel's "The Sun is Burning" which also features a "sun" in rather the wrong direction.
I'll let Britannia know her error, as tactfully as possible. She can be vicious with that fork when corrected...
A lot of people don't get that bit : he means the sun, rising so slowly in the east is nonetheless illuminating the land to the west. Why this should make anyone feel better is another matter, of course.
Mike
I did think that since nuclear weapons had yet to in invented, he must mean that the illumination is also, I dunno, picking out the trees on the hill to the west? Which, certain, a thing. Light does bang around as any photographer will not doubt have noticed. Generally it bangs around where you don't want it, but is curiously absent in precisely the places you'd like it.
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