William Topaz McGonagall, (March 1825-29 September 1902), quite possibly the world’s worst poet, yet an admirable man well worth the knowing.

by Dr. Jeffrey Lant

Author’s program note. I first became aware of William McGonagall in 1967 when I was a student at Scotland’s oldest and proudest university, St. Andrews. “You must read McGonagall” people said with a twinkle. “He’s undoubtedly Scotland’s worst poet… indeed, quite possibly the single worst poet who has ever lived.”

Every person who told me — and there were many — offered their fervent recommendation, tongue firmly in cheek, with high good humor… but there was (odd mixture) more than a dollop of respect in their words, even admiration… and never, ever derision. McGonagall compelled their respect, and so while everyone smiled at his execrable verses… there wasn’t a soul who begrudged him a hard-earned encomium for his persistence, his tenacity in pursuing his evanescent, shimmering dream, and most of all his unyielding determination, a potent combination which made him an unlikely celebrity and a man about whom I now say to you in my turn “You must read McGonagall.”

For the incidental music to this article I have selected a tune from the 1954 musical “Brigadoon”, that magic place in the sweet-smelling heather, the pertinacious flower of Scotland; a place that emerges once every 100 years to remind you of a people, their unquenchable zest and undeniable genius. McGonagall deserves his hard-won place amongst the revelry and pageantry of Brigadoon… it would no doubt have inspired him to another (admittedly God-awful) effusion.

You will find my selection — “Heather on the hill” — in any search engine. Go now… for at this party we shall eat, drink, be merrie… and if we compel a tear, then it’s a willing tribute we pay to a land we revere and remember fondly too… and because McGonagall shared that sentiment he is always and forever one of us.

Born in Edinburgh, in 1825, or maybe 1830.

Like many aspects of McGonagall’s checkered career, his basic facts are either unknown or in dispute. He was, for instance, born in the Greyfriars Parish in Edinburgh in March, but just what date is not known… indeed the very year itself of his birth cannot be determined. What of it? He came to his Irish parents on a particular day… and it’s sufficient that he did so… and so began his race, a race for which he was well equipped in only one thing — true grit and assiduity.

… And sad to say, that wasn’t enough to win, as he wanted to win. But he refused to recognize this fact, and that’s the point of this tale…

The Weaver Poet.

If he were born today, McGonagall, hard-working weaver of long-wearing cloth, would no doubt qualify for a grant from some well-meaning foundation of liberal tendencies… but such like did not exist then… and so, despite the wife and 7 children he acquired along the way, he left his uncertain craft… in pursuit of… what? Different people said very different things about what he did. He never heard them, didn’t care, and didn’t let their advice, however earnest and sensible, determine his direction… and that, too, is the point of this tale.

And so his quest for himself and for the words that always eluded him began…

… appropriately enough with a role in “Macbeth” where he played the title role… embellishing it in this way: having paid Mr. Giles for the right to play this role at his theatre, he understandably wished to get his money’s worth. And so at Macduff’s great moment, McGonagall, as Macbeth, refused to die and stayed on the stage, extemporizing, to the consternation and amusement of all. Ah, this was most assuredly a portent of things — and poetry — to come.

A pivotal moment in 1877.

There comes to all people with a mission a moment of epiphany, a moment when they know beyond a shadow of doubt what they will do, what they must do to fulfill their destiny and high purpose. This moment occurred in 1877 for McGonagall, and it determined his fate. “I seemed to feel a strange kind of feeling stealing over me and remained so for about five minutes.” Another man must have seen it as dyspepsia brought on by a too fine dinner… McGonagall saw it as destiny…. his fate, poetry.

And now, then, we must unveil some of this poetry, ultimately about 200 works, perhaps the worst ever written, God bless him.

McGonagall, fervent royalist that he was, wrote often about his sovereign princess and lady, Queen Victoria. Indeed, on one well-known occasion he thought nothing of walking about 60 miles from Dundee to Balmoral where Her Majesty then resided. Undaunted by her failure to receive him, drenched to the skin though he was, not even gifted with a wee, warming dram, he still revered, for his loyalty was abiding and profound.

Thus for her Golden Jubilee of 1887, celebrating 50 years upon the throne, he wrote:

“Therefore let all her subjects rejoice and sing, Until they make the welkin ring; And let young and old on this her Jubilee be glad, And cry, ‘Long Live our Queen!’ and don’t be sad.’

Delicious.

Sadly such loyal sentiments so rendered did not enrich this most unpoetic of poets, no indeed. Thus his expedients were many. For instance, he took a job at a circus where he gave readings from his oeuvre and allowed his discriminating listeners to signify their disapprobation by pelting him with offal, dead cats, rotten tomatoes, lamb carcasses and other disagreeables. It was never enough, not even close, to making a living.

…. But still the torpid words, the wrong words, the words that mangled and hurt to hear kept coming, for this was a man possessed, though not gifted.

Until the collapse of the great Tay Bridge, one of the great engineering marvels of the age, gave him his great opportunity — and he seized it.

“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.”

And so he rendered the catastrophe of 28 December 1879 when the bridge collapsed, taking with it the fast-speeding express and every passenger. McGonagall’s words were the high point of his bathetic career.

Let us leave it so, for now you know of McGonagall and his works, each one you can read, savor, and enjoy… though never, ever deride. For though he was a bad poet, perhaps the worst ever known, he was adamant in pursuit of his dream; perhaps more adamant than you. And so in the end, he endures; his awkward verses, every one of them, still in print…

“I am your gracious Majesty ever faithful to Thee, William McGonagall, the Poor Poet, That lives in Dundee.”

… And in our hearts.

‘Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion…’; the great truth assailed by the little man from Pennsylvania, former U.S. Senator Rick Santorum; John F. Kennedy’s historic address on the matter revisited.

by Dr. Jeffrey Lant

Author’s program note. Religious fervor, religious metaphors, religious language, religious dispute, religious assertiveness, religious iconography, religious music all pulsate through every aspect of the Great Republic, its life and affairs. And that is why the Founding Fathers as their first order of business and to establish the tone and substance for all that followed, wrote the First Amendment to the Constitution. In sparse, incisive, resolute, unequivocal language they rendered their bold and well considered opinion thus:

“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof, or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press, or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.”

These sentiments were the more necessary because of the very vibrancy of religion and all of its manifestations in the Great Republic… for every religion, (because of its adamant belief that its way to God is The way to God), is messianic, exclusive, intolerant, and so potentially divisive, disruptive, even dangerous.

And no one knew this better than the great and thoughtful Founding Fathers who had as their matter of high and abiding significance the preservation of the many great things rendered by religion… whilst avoiding the imperial tendencies of all religions, to uplift themselves, even unto the seizure of the Great Republic, whilst denigrating the rest.

The great problem set, these same Founding Fathers commenced their high business of solving it. For make no mistake about it, the objective of the Founding Fathers was not the crippling control and suppression of religion so much as it was creating an atmosphere and civic establishment in which religions — all religions — might flourish to the glory and benefit of the Great Republic they were crafting and meant to have.

Thus I give you the occasional music for this article, and a better tune one could hardly have for this subject: “Give Me That Old-Time Religion.” It’s a traditional Gospel song dating from 1873. Charles David Tillman took this song, which may have originated as a black folk song, and by his publishing and enthusiasm for its adamant, uplifting message turned it into a staple of white congregations and so it has abided, a joyful manifestation of the Good News.

To get it, go now to any search engine. You’ll find many fine renditions of this song; I prefer the get-up-and-praise Him version belted out by Mahalia Jackson, Hallelujah… for if it was good enough for my father… good enough for my mother… then it’s good enough for me!

The background to the First Amendment.

To a person, the men who constituted the Founding Fathers, were men knowledgeable about religion, its history, uses, practices, and tendencies. As a result, they were haunted, almost to a person, by the damages religion could deliver, as well as its comforts. And they knew, none better, that left to its own devices religion could chill individual inquiry rather than encourage it, could become the harsh means of fettering the human mind, not advancing it. And what they wanted, to the point of obsession, was a land of liberty, not a land where uniformity of view was the order of the day, and was enforced by priests, pastors, and pontiffs; different in their views, the same in their devices for achieving them; working each to control with bell, book, and candle.

They, too, were aware that such a land, so unfettered in its thoughts, a paradise for every believer not just one, had never existed in the history of mankind where uniformity of outlook reigned as the desired objective. As a result the Founding Fathers, here as elsewhere, found themselves on the cutting-edge of this crucial matter of statecraft and belief…. and they gave the matter their utmost consideration… for no question exercised them more that what they could do to place the people of the new republic into a proper, sustained relationship with their common Creator.

They selected a solution Erastian, latitudinarian, tolerant.

Tolerance for all, hegemony and control for none. This became their guiding light , and they found vital sustenance for it amongst the works of Thomas Erastus, (1524-1583), a 16th century German physician and theologian. He held that the punishment of all offenses should be referred to the civil power and that holy communion was open to all. Thus should the church and its ministers be made subservient to the officials of the government, rather than these officials of the government made subservient to the church and its ministers.

They looked, too, to the cool reason of John Locke (1632-1704), who advocated, first and foremost, a tolerance which had, perhaps, never been seen before… a latitudinarian whose profound thoughts once glimpsed became the abiding vision of all sensible people, and the basis for civil peace, not internecine strife.

From such beginnings did the idea of religious tolerance grow, until at last it was written and proclaimed in the First Amendment, as the very essence of what we stood for as a Great Republic and who we wanted to be. Thus as the Founding Fathers surveyed it, they saw their work whole… and knew it to be a great resolution to a great problem, a great policy indeed for the Great Republic.

.. and from the moment of its inception it has done its work…

JFK, admirable in Houston.

Then John Fitzgerald Kennedy ran for president… and many people worried that as a Roman Catholic he would sabotage this verity, pledging instead fealty to the Bishop of Rome, rather than the Great Republic. And so, he went to Houston where before the Greater Houston Ministerial Association he presented himself and his views. The date was September 12, 1960… and it was perhaps his most admirable day on Earth; for on this day he stated with vehemence and resolution these words:

“I believe in an America where the separation of church and state is absolute.” And if, perhaps, he did not persuade all the reverend doctors present (for some were not to be persuaded) he did persuade the people of the Great Republic, who in their turn elected him…thus proving with their ballots the kind of inclusive, tolerant, pacific society they desired and affirmed.

It is this society, this vision, the most profound ever imagined that one little man has challenged, in a way at once crude, graphic and alarming.

“I don’t believe in an America where the separation of church and state are absolute.” Rick Santorum, (College of Saint Mary Magdalen, Warner, New Hampshire, October 2011 and reaffirmed thereafter).

“The idea that the church can have no influence or no involvement in the operation of the state is absolutely antithetical to the objectives and visions of our country… to say that people of faith have no role in the public square? You bet that makes me want to throw up.”

This is the statement of a zealot, a demagogue, a radical… and thus a danger to the community, the comity, the country… and to the Great Republic itself.

The firewall called Michigan held… but barely.

The results are now counted in Michigan which Tuesday, February 28, 2012 held one of the most important presidential primaries ever, and by just the smallest of margins denied Santorum and his radical views, views that would roil the essential verities of the Great Republic and divide the people.

Is this the end of the war then? Alas, no. For this battle, which sensible citizens thought was settled centuries ago by the expansive vision of the Founding Fathers, is under attack by incendiaries like Santorum who mean to light their way to the God they arrogantly suppose they know with autos-da-fe, a ghastly light unto eternity.

That is why the rest of us must remain vigilant, for a right undefended is a right at risk… and this right has been too hard won to be threatened, much less eviscerated and destroyed, by a man like Santorum, for all that he fancies himself the agent of God and his Holy Will.

** What do you think? We invite your comments below.