Scotland Remembers Awful Poet
Fri Sep 27, 2:40 PM ET
DUNDEE, Scotland (AP) - Scotland's worst poet was remembered Friday with a new walkway dedicated to his memory beside the river he immortalized in his mangled meter.
The first verse of William Topaz McGonagall's poem, "The Railway Bridge over the Silvery Tay," has been engraved in stone along the new McGonagall walkway by the River Tay in his home city of Dundee.
"Beautiful Railway Bridge of the Silvery Tay!/ With your numerous arches and pillars in so grand array/ And your central girders, which seem to the eye/ To be almost towering to the sky," does not lightly trip off the tongue, but many Scots love their purveyor of worst verse.
"It's wonderful that 100 years after his death he is being celebrated, and I think he would be overjoyed at this kind tribute to his memory, thoughtfully positioned in one of his favorite places," said Mary Ross, a relative who attended the unveiling ceremony on the 100th anniversary of McGonagall's death.
Dundee already has a McGonagall Square with a plaque commemorating the poet, and the public library has a good collection of his works.
The self-taught son of an Irish cotton weaver, McGonagall was born in the Scottish capital, Edinburgh, but worked most of his life as a hand loom weaver in Dundee's jute mills.
The muse struck when he was 47, and he recalled being overcome with a strange feeling: "It was so strong, I imagined that a pen was in my right hand, and a voice crying, 'Write! Write!'"
And so he did — more than 200 poems on everything from famous Scottish battles to Queen Victoria's Golden Jubilee.
He was paid for his work just once, for a Sunlight Soap commercial that read, "You can use it with great pleasure and ease/ Without wasting any elbow grease/ And when washing the most dirty clothes/ The sweat will not be running from your nose."
McGonagall died of a stroke in Edinburgh in 1902, where he is buried.
