[lit-ideas] Re: A timely warning
- From: cblists@xxxxxxxx
- To: Lit-Ideas <lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Sun, 26 Jan 2014 08:08:06 +0100
One feature of the BBC's 'running order' for a Burns Night supper which I
particularly like is
"Lost Burns manuscripts
Some Burns Night suppers include a lost manuscript reading,
where a participant with literary aspirations recites from a
fictitious long-lost musing of the great man on a new subject."
Perhaps I can persuade lit-ideas list members to offer samples of such 'lost
manuscripts' on future anniversaries of prominent events in literature and
philosophy.
Alas, my own literary gifts are extremely modest - but I am reminded of a
parody of Burns written some years ago after reading of the publishing of the
genetic code of a mouse, along with the comment that"[h]umans and mice ...
shared a common ancestor about 75 million years ago [which] means the most
important parts of their genomes should share striking similarities ..."
Of Mice and Men
(with apologies to [lovers of] John Steinbeck and Robbie Burns)
Wee. sleeket, cowran, tim'rous beastie,
What's deep encoded in each breastie?
Thine compels ta flight so hasty,
Wi' bickering brattle;
While mine doth urge to rin an' chase thee
Wi' murd'ring pattle!
What is it in my 'human nature'
That makes me such a murd'rous cr'ature,
With blood-thirst as a prom'nent f'ature?
Tha'rt right to startle
At me - who lusts to maim and torture
My fellow-mortal!
I offer this in hopes that it spurs to action those who can do much better!
Chris Bruce, in
Kiel, Germany
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