This Was A Bad Idea
Mar. 3rd, 2011 08:49 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
grav_ityIt's a bad idea because "Come, Tell Me How You Live" makes me cry when I'm happy. But I was thinking about Arthur Evans, and that led to Wheeler, and that led to Woolley, and that led to Mallowan (who is really my favourite anyway), and then I ran straight into Agatha Christie and that poem I adore so much because it's the truth.
Just in case this is the last time I use the jordan tag, I want it to be happy.
I'll tell you everything I can
If you will listen well:
I met at erudite young man
A'sitting on a Tell.
"Who are you sir?" to him I said,
"For what is it you look?"
His answer trickled through my head
Like bloodstains through a book...
He said: "I look for aged pots
Of prehistoric days,
And then I measure them in lots
And lots of different ways.
And then (like you) I start to write,
My words are twice as long
As yours and far more erudite.
They prove my collegues wrong!"
But I was thinking of a plan
To kill a millionaire
And hide the body in a van
Or some large Frigidaire.
So, having no reply to give
And feeling rather shy,
I cried: "Come, tell me how you live!
And when and where and why?"
His accents mild were full of wit:
"Five thousand years ago
Is really, when I think of it.
The choicest age I know.
And once you learn to scorn AD
And you have got the knack
Then you could come and dig with me
And never wander back."
But I was thinking how to thrust
Some arsenic into tea,
And could not all at once adjust
My mind so far BC.
I looked at him and softly sighed,
His face was pleasant too...
"Come, tell me how you live?" I cried,
"And what it is you do."
He said: "I hunt for objects made
By men where'er the roam,
I photograph and catalogue
And pack and send them home.
These things we do not sell for gold
(Nor yet, indeed, for copper),
But place them on Museum shelves
As only right and proper.
"I sometimes dig up amulets
And figurines most lewd,
For in those prehistoric days
They were extremely rude!
And that's the way we take our fun
'Tis not the way of wealth.
But Archaeologists live long
And have the rudest health."
I heard him then, for I had just
Completed a design
To keep a body free of dust
By boiling it in brine.
I thanked him much for telling me
With so much eridition,
And said that I would go with him
Upon an Expedition.....
And now, if e'er by chance I dip
My fingers into acid,
Or smash some pottery (with slip)
Because I am not placid,
Or if I see a fiver flow
And hear a far-off yell,
I sigh, for it reminds me so
Of that young man I learned to know --
Whose look was mild, whose speech was slow,
Whose thoughts were in the long ago,
Whose pockets sagged with potsherds so,
Who lectured learnedly and low,
Who used long words I didn't know,
Whose eyes, with fervour all a-glow,
Upon the ground looked to and fro,
Who sought conclusively to show
That there were things I ought to know
And that with him I ought to go
And dig upon a Tell!
Just in case this is the last time I use the jordan tag, I want it to be happy.
I'll tell you everything I can
If you will listen well:
I met at erudite young man
A'sitting on a Tell.
"Who are you sir?" to him I said,
"For what is it you look?"
His answer trickled through my head
Like bloodstains through a book...
He said: "I look for aged pots
Of prehistoric days,
And then I measure them in lots
And lots of different ways.
And then (like you) I start to write,
My words are twice as long
As yours and far more erudite.
They prove my collegues wrong!"
But I was thinking of a plan
To kill a millionaire
And hide the body in a van
Or some large Frigidaire.
So, having no reply to give
And feeling rather shy,
I cried: "Come, tell me how you live!
And when and where and why?"
His accents mild were full of wit:
"Five thousand years ago
Is really, when I think of it.
The choicest age I know.
And once you learn to scorn AD
And you have got the knack
Then you could come and dig with me
And never wander back."
But I was thinking how to thrust
Some arsenic into tea,
And could not all at once adjust
My mind so far BC.
I looked at him and softly sighed,
His face was pleasant too...
"Come, tell me how you live?" I cried,
"And what it is you do."
He said: "I hunt for objects made
By men where'er the roam,
I photograph and catalogue
And pack and send them home.
These things we do not sell for gold
(Nor yet, indeed, for copper),
But place them on Museum shelves
As only right and proper.
"I sometimes dig up amulets
And figurines most lewd,
For in those prehistoric days
They were extremely rude!
And that's the way we take our fun
'Tis not the way of wealth.
But Archaeologists live long
And have the rudest health."
I heard him then, for I had just
Completed a design
To keep a body free of dust
By boiling it in brine.
I thanked him much for telling me
With so much eridition,
And said that I would go with him
Upon an Expedition.....
And now, if e'er by chance I dip
My fingers into acid,
Or smash some pottery (with slip)
Because I am not placid,
Or if I see a fiver flow
And hear a far-off yell,
I sigh, for it reminds me so
Of that young man I learned to know --
Whose look was mild, whose speech was slow,
Whose thoughts were in the long ago,
Whose pockets sagged with potsherds so,
Who lectured learnedly and low,
Who used long words I didn't know,
Whose eyes, with fervour all a-glow,
Upon the ground looked to and fro,
Who sought conclusively to show
That there were things I ought to know
And that with him I ought to go
And dig upon a Tell!
