Happy ... 'Take A Poet To Lunch Day' To All Who Celebrate

They could probably use it.

A very pretty and shiny but sadly anonymous pup, courtesy of our friend Garnet

It’s the weekend!

In addition to a rather unpleasant anniversary, today is also National Take A Poet To Lunch Day — which I’m really glad I didn’t know about back in college, I guess.

As such, your present this week is a poem: The Tay Bridge Disaster by one William Topaz McGonagall, widely considered the worst poet in history (with the best middle name, for a man, IMO).

It starts out:

Beautiful Railway Bridge of the Silv’ry Tay!
Alas! I am very sorry to say
That ninety lives have been taken away
On the last Sabbath day of 1879,
Which will be remember’d for a very long time.

’Twas about seven o’clock at night,
And the wind it blew with all its might,
And the rain came pouring down,
And the dark clouds seem’d to frown,
And the Demon of the air seem’d to say-
“I’ll blow down the Bridge of Tay.”

Then it goes on and on and on for many stanzas before concluding:

It must have been an awful sight,
To witness in the dusky moonlight,
While the Storm Fiend did laugh, and angry did bray,
Along the Railway Bridge of the Silv’ry Tay,
Oh! ill-fated Bridge of the Silv’ry Tay,
I must now conclude my lay
By telling the world fearlessly without the least dismay,
That your central girders would not have given way,
At least many sensible men do say,
Had they been supported on each side with buttresses,
At least many sensible men confesses,
For the stronger we our houses do build,
The less chance we have of being killed.

It’s pretty bad, I guess? Although I am 1000% I’ve heard (possibly written) worse. This was one of three poems the man wrote about the same damn bridge, as he also wrote one before the bridge was blown down and another after they built a new one. He loved bridges! Or this particular bridge.

McGonagall landed in poetry as a profession after the Industrial Revolution made it very difficult for him to earn money as a weaver. He wrote some poems and then sent them off to Queen Victoria in hope that she would become his patron — for which he received a form rejection letter turning him down and thanking him for his interest. He took this letter, which was not actually written by Queen Victoria, as a sign that she was, in fact, very interested in his poetry and subsequently went around telling everyone so. (Poor Queen V had a lot of trouble with poets, as she was also nearly assassinated by one — whether or not she thought that was worse than the poem McGonagall wrote about the incident, we may never know. Though we can assume that on both accounts, she was not amused*)

After Alfred Lord Tennyson died, he tried to contact her again and walked all the way to Balmoral Castle in hopes that she would declare him the new Poet Laureate … but she wasn’t in at the time so he went home.

He actually ended up making something of a living traveling around Scotland going from pub to pub reading his terrible, terrible poems, as people enjoyed laughing and throwing rotten fish and vegetables at him as he did so.

At one point, he claimed to have been given the title “Sir William Topaz McGonagall – Knight of the White Elephant, Burmah” by the King of Burmah, though that probably didn’t happen.

Something that did happen, however, was the fact that he once also tried his hand as a Shakespearean actor and paid for the privilege to play Macbeth — but also refused to die at the end.

Honestly? I would absolutely take him to lunch. May we all have his confidence!

*I know it’s apocryphal, I’m not an idiot, just let me have this one.

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