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Scotch rhapsody

Language: English

 Do not take a bath in Jordan
 Gordon,
 On the holy Sabbath, on the peaceful day!
 Said the huntsman,
 playing on his old bagpipe,
 Boring to death the pheasant
 and the snipe -
 Boring the ptarmigan
 and grouse for fun -
 Boring them worse
 than a nine-bore gun.
 Till the flaxen leaves where the
 prunes are ripe,
 Heard the tartan wind a-droning
 through the pipe,
 And they, heard Macpherson say:
 "Where do the waves go; What hotels
 Hide their bustles
 and their gay ombrelles?
 And would there be room for me? -
 Would there be room,
 Would there be room for me?"
 There is a hotel at Ostend
 Cold as the wind, without an end,
 Haunted by ghostly poor relations
 Of Bostonian conversations
 (Like bagpipes rotting
 through the walls.)
 And there the pearl-ropes fall like shawls
 With a noise like marine waterfalls.
 And "Another little drink
 wouldn't do us any harm"
 Pierces through the sabbatical calm.
 And that is the place for me!
 So do not take a bath in Jordan,
 Gordon,
 On the holy Sabbath on the
 peaceful day-
 Or you'll never go to heaven,
 Gordon Macpherson,
 And speaking purely as a private person
 That is the place - that is the place -
 that is the place for me!


Input by Dan Eggleston

Authorship

Musical settings (art songs, Lieder, mélodies, (etc.), choral pieces, and other vocal works set to this text), listed by composer (not necessarily exhaustive)

Added to the website between May 1995 and September 2003.

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