After the Execution....

Tim the Gardener was inspired to write a poem:

On Monday 28.9.09

I met a moping Royalist

patrolling Hay this morning

I greeted him quite royally

but he pretended scorning,

ignoring me and strolling on

was all he could contrive

no hello, jest, jibe or blow,

he barely seemed alive

*

"He'll do his rounds," I thought, "and then

go home for cup of tea

amid the fitted kitchen

armchairs, sofa and TV

and dwell upon the good old days

while nursing more resent

but fail to see his own hand in

former dismal non-event."

*

God send us leaping Morris men

and Rodgers fit to dodge

not grown up men who snub like girls

and can't discuss the grudge

God send us laughing holy men

and a Tiny Tim who's tall

and we will cut a caper in

this waxworks 'ere we fall.

*

Republicans cannot be snobs

whatever else we be

for in our day all nobs are topped

or hung upon a tree

We're common men and Levellers

That structures our ambition

No-one and nothing known can be

beneath our recognition.

*

Meanwhile, in the press, there's a good piece in the B&R this week (page 5, with Boz being menaced by two Cavaliers), and there's a piece on the Guardian website at http://www.guardian.co.uk/profile/alisonflood