We Had An Empire Once

On the subject of Aegyptology, here are Wilson and Keppel and their "Sand Dance", 1943.



Sexual intercourse began
In nineteen sixty-three
(which was rather late for me) -
Between the end of the Chatterley ban
And the Beatles' first LP.

Up to then there'd only been
A sort of bargaining,
A wrangle for the ring,
A shame that started at sixteen
And spread to everything.

Then all at once the quarrel sank:
Everyone felt the same,
And every life became
A brilliant breaking of the bank,
A quite unlosable game.

So life was never better than
In nineteen sixty-three
(Though just too late for me) -
Between the end of the Chatterley ban
And the Beatles' first LP.

Philip Larkin, "Annus Mirabilis", 1967

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We had an Empire once... here is John Dryden's "Annus Mirabilis", 1666, making the best of the Great Plague, the Great Fire and numerous trouncings at the hands of the Dutch.

 1  In thriving arts long time had Holland grown,
Crouching at home and cruel when abroad:
Scarce leaving us the means to claim our own;
Our King they courted, and our merchants awed.
  2  Trade, which, like blood, should circularly flow,
Stopp'd in their channels, found its freedom lost:
Thither the wealth of all the world did go,
And seem'd but shipwreck'd on so base a coast.
  3  For them alone the heavens had kindly heat;
In eastern quarries ripening precious dew:
For them the Idumæan balm did sweat,
And in hot Ceylon spicy forests grew.
  4  The sun but seem'd the labourer of the year;
Each waxing moon supplied her watery store,
To swell those tides, which from the line did bear
Their brimful vessels to the Belgian shore.
  5  Thus mighty in her ships, stood Carthage long,
And swept the riches of the world from far;
Yet stoop'd to Rome, less wealthy, but more strong:
And this may prove our second Punic war.

Those pesky Dutch, eh? Grrrrrr. There follow another 299 stanzas of blatant lying, nowadays known as 'spin'. Though no-one attempts the dignity of rhyme these days, not even rhyme as bad as Dryden's. Grrrrrr.

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Here are the arms from the counter of the "Royal Charles", in the Rijksmuseum. The ship was captured in 1667 when the Dutch raided the Medway.

Blogista: Still awake?

Readers: No. Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz. None of us have read even this far, actually. Zzzzzzz.