Sallye, Michael was part of School Certificate Curriculum in1948, my teacher
made it interesting. I honestly have never been able to rekindle that
interest I agree with you. Tam though has stayed with me all my life. I was
in a pub in Rothesay some years ago and some one asked me where I had slept
the night before. I told them Ayr, adding, " Which non surpasses for good
ale and bonnie lasses." I spent the rest of a very pleasant afternoon
capping lines from the poem with people in the pub. I was kindly rewarded
for my memory from a dusty bottle from the top shelf and a "Would you like a
wee dram? This is a single malt, ye ken, a wee bit peaty but 15 year old."
Haste ye back, indeed. Regards Arthur.----- Original Message -----
From: "Sally Evans" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Sunday, November 17, 2002 11:31 PM
Subject: Re: New sub: The Gargoyle
> Hilarious, Arthur.
> and you feel that somehow it is all a metaphor for - what - ?
>
> But - did you really feel like that about Michael? I thought Mr Homer
> Wordsworth downright fell asleep during that one. To start with the guy
> should let his kids have their own lives, and secondly I didnt believe a
> word of the story about the young man's wickedness in the city. What a
load
> of cuntry hypocrisy (yes I meant that spelling).
>
> bw
> SallyE
>
> on 17/11/02 9:54 am, arthur seeley at [log in to unmask] wrote:
>
> > The Gargoyle.(A comment on adverse literary
> > criticism.)
> >
> >
> > He took us for English Lang. and Lit.,
> > Old Prut.
> > Richard the Second, Silas Marner,
> > The Elegy, Michael and Shanter
> > and the rest, he taught to us.
> >
> > Billowing down corridors,
> > volumes folded under arm,
> > swirl of black gown,
> > bat-winged demi-god,
> > he terrified us with Tam,
> > echoes of his eldritch Wow!,
> > froze bumptious boys classrooms away.
> >
> > Through him Old Gaunt lived
> > and died again.
> > I wept for the toils of Michael, alone,
> > building beside a tumultuous brook.
> >
> > I loved the man.
> > He gave me poetry
> > and quiet joy for all my days.
> >
> > It was his dog I hated.
> >
> > A scabby cur.
> > Part Pug, part Airedale, part Satan,
> > it lurked
> > under the red tasselled velvet cloth
> > that covered the table in his room.
> > The floor would rumble
> > with imprecations
> > as you slippered over the carpet
> > with your offering.
> >
> > One day, called away,
> > he left me with the gargoyle.
> > A mere child
> > alone upon the threshold of hell.
> >
> > Shedding stony flakes of mange,
> > snorting for breath,
> > through flattened nose, grumbling
> > through slobber- swung jowls,
> > it slouched from its lair,
> > glued me to the floor
> > with a snarled rictus
> > of white fangs that averred
> > disembowelment if I blinked;
> > passed so close to me I smelt the sulphur
> > of its breath; saw damned souls
> > writhing in the fires of its eyes;
> > took my book,
> > and all the beauty I had mounted there,
> > and chewed it to a slimy plug.
> >
> > Prut apologised.
> > The dog did not.
> >
> > So I love poetry
> > but hate the gargoyle
> > muttering distant thundery curses
> > from beneath a tasselled cloth.
> > Regards Arthur.
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