Gone Are The Days -- Norman MacCaig

Guest poem submitted by Amulya Gopalakrishnan:

(Poem #755) 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. -- Norman MacCaig

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.