Old Rome
had many taverns,
Devoted to the
vine,
Where Ovid pledged each new love
In red Falernian wine;
Catullus, shamed by Lesbia,
Poured out his grief in verse;
Apuleus noted follies,
And pondered which was worse.
Refrain:
But the place that draws me ever
When my fancy's running wild,
Is
a little pub in Oxford
Called The Eagle and the Child,
The Eagle and the Child, oh,
Or else, as I have heard
Its regulars all called it--
The Baby and the Bird!
The company was lively
In
Soutwark's Tabard Inn,
When
Chaucer and the Pilgrims
Were telling tales within,
And on the Canterbury road
They took that April day,
And at the other hostels
Where they stayed upon their way.
(REFRAIN)
When Villon, gutter-poet,
Reeled
through the Paris night,
Drunk
on verse and hypocras
And looking for a fight,
The Pomme de Pin, the Cheval Blanc
All welcomed him, and more,
With wine at every table
And doxies at each door.
(REFRAIN)
Of all the City's taverns,
When
Bess was England 's Queen,
The Mermaid, undisputed, ruled
The literary scene.
Each Global
play was played again
And christened
in brown ale,
Whde
Shakespeare, or Ben Jonson,
Stood up to
tell the tale.
(REFRAIN)
Augustan wits
made merry
At London 's Cheshire
Cheese--
The topic was
no matter,
So that the
manner please--
Be it Love or
Politicks,
'Twas
scandalous, I've heard,
And Johnson had
his Boswell
To write down
every word.
(REFRAIN)
Asking,
They sing of
famous taverns,
But considering
them all,
The one where I
had rather
Been a fly upon
the wall,
Would be the Inn where Tolkien,
Lewis, Williams
too,
Met with the
other Inklings
Asking,
"Who has something new?"
[By Diana L. Paxson]
Diana L. Paxson, long-time active in ‘The Mythopoeic Society’, and in ‘The
Society for Creative Anachronism’, is the author of many novels, including The White Raven, The "Fionn MacCumhal trilogy,
and a trilogy on the Siegfried legend, the most recent volume of which, The Lord of Horses, has been
published recently.
2 comments:
Thank you for keeping this blog going. I'm sure you have many silent visitors, who stop by for a respite from the mad world. I thought it was necessary to let you know how much your work is appreciated (whoever you are).
I went to the Bird and the Baby (that's the name I knew it by) several years ago during a pilgrimage to Oxford. (Yes, a pilgrimage, to visit the sacred sites where Tolkien and Lewis toiled -- sacred to me, anyway.) It was an experience I will never forget -- to sip ale in the shadow of Oxford's dreaming spires, where once Tollers and Jack read aloud their just-born tales.
Keep up the good work!
I studied at Oxford myself and would have been pleased to show you around to the 'rather less known' sites. Glad you enjoy the blog...
Post a Comment