Monday, November 24, 2014

Monday's Poetry: "Scarborough Fair"

by Pa Rock
Poetry Appreciator

Mike Nichols passed away this week at the age of eighty-three.  Nichols was the first film director whose work so amazed me that I paid to see one of his movies twice - and that was while I was a very poor college student.  The movie was "The Graduate" starring Dustin Hoffman, Anne Bancroft, and Katherine Ross - the story of a young man graduating from college who, while in the process of falling in love with the neighbor's daughter, is seduced by the girl's mother.  The movie pushed some envelopes in film that had never before been pushed, and the story was set to the backdrop of a complete original soundtrack by Simon and Garfunkel.   Their "Mrs. Robinson" focused on, and was titled after,  Anne Bancroft's character, the seductress.

But my favorite song from the movie was a traditional English ballad that the duo performed, "Scarborough Fair," named for the town of Scarborough in Yorkshire, England.  Many earlier versions of the ballad exist, but the one recorded by Simon and Garfunkel for the movie has become the standard.

Rest in peace, Mike Nichols.  You, yourself, set many standards in your long and lofty career, and "The Graduate" was certainly one of them.  Thanks for picking my pocket twice at the Fox Theatre in Springfield, Missouri.  It was certainly money well spent!


"Scarborough Fair"
    as recorded by Simon and Garfunkel

Are you going to Scarborough Fair:
Parsley, sage, rosemary and thyme.
Remember me to one who lives there.
She once was a true love of mine.

On the side of a hill in the deep forest green.
Tracing of sparrow on snow-crested brown.
Blankets and bedclothes the child of the mountain
Sleeps unaware of the clarion call.

Tell her to make me a cambric shirt:
Parsley, sage, rosemary and thyme;
Without no seams nor needle work,
Then she'll be a true love of mine.

On the side of a hill a sprinkling of leaves.
Washes the grave with silvery tears.
A soldier cleans and polishes a gun.
Sleeps unaware of the clarion call.

Tell her to find me an acre of land:
Parsley, sage, rosemary and thyme;
Between the salt water and the sea strand,
Then she'll be a true love of mine.

War bellows blazing in scarlet battalions.
General order their soldiers to kill.
And to fight for a cause they've long ago forgotten.

Tell her to reap it with a sickle of leather:
Parsley, sage, rosemary and thyme;
And gather it all in a bunch of heather,
Then she'll be a true love of mine.    


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