David (aka Britology Watch)
How can I answer such a question?
Can a man truly tell his lover what she means to him,
Or a daughter her mother?
England. There is no other.
Words are not enough,
Not even those English words
Good, honest, simple;
Not always Anglo-Saxon
Even when we think them so,
But English, all the same;
Replete with history and tradition.
And yet in some ways,
There are too many words
How rich our vocabulary!
So many possibilities of expression;
Such a forest of meaning to get lost in
When language extends beyond its roots
And we cannot see the wood for the trees.
It is as if the whole world
Has poured its scattered meanings
Into our dictionary;
Just as now the whole world, it seems,
Has taken refuge on our shores
And seeks to make its home in England
Or is it, makes England its home?
For we are no longer sure
If we invited them - England, that is -
Not even those we truly welcome to our land.
That choice was taken from our hand:
England, the home of freedom,
The Mother of Parliaments,
Is not free to define the limits of its nation,
To have a destiny not just be a destination;
And be truly called by its own name.
England, the one and only.
Instead, the stranger is invited
To view himself as British:
In fact, an alien not sharing common values
But sharing our alienation;
For we, too, are called
To quit the foolish things of youth
In the name of a universal truth
That we are “British”:
Rootless wanderers of the global age,
And strangers in a land that belongs to all
And so belongs to none.
England: there is none other.
Words are meaningless if there is not heart;
And where there is no heart, there cannot be a home.
I have not always loved her, my England,
When I have travelled far abroad;
But I did not love myself when I despised her,
And always I have called her home.
And always, she has called me home.
She is, in so many ways, my very ground of being;
The wellspring that set my heartbeat racing.
Much that defines me defines England, too;
I belong to England and England belongs to me.
The rhythm of her language speaks in me;
I am the product of her history,
A part of her present
And the guarantor of her future.
For as long as my heart beats,
England, too, will not be beaten.
They can take our nation in name only;
But while I live, they cannot take her soul.
And that is what “England” means to me.
David blogs at Britology Watch
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Absolutely beautiful and quite moving. You have captured exactly that English “feel”. “They” ARE trying to take our nation away and cast it aside, like it doesn’t matter, but one day we will rise up and take it back. I know it.
Ceecee
10 Oct 07 at 11:24 am
How I wish that I could write like that, for it expresses all that I feel for this this beautiful England of ours, thank you David for your contribution.
Len Welsh
10 Oct 07 at 11:53 am
I found your verse very moving, David. What a gift to capture an essential “Englishness” with such poignancy. I have sent it on to friends who have also been very moved by the sentiments.
greg
11 Oct 07 at 1:29 am
Thanks, Ceecee, Len and greg - I’m glad you were moved by it.
David
11 Oct 07 at 5:44 am
Those sentiments would make sense coming from an Englishman who wanted England for the English, but David is one of those Witanagemot-style nationalist-anti-nationalists who says anybody and everybody can be English.
Can he truly tell us that another man’s lover means as much to him as his own? Or other peoples’ children? Of course not. So does he honestly believe that national families and their bonds of blood and shared ancestry are so very different, and are shed and adopted much more easily? I doubt it.
He identifies with England, says he is a product of her history, and he is a guarantor of her future. But if David and other Witanagemot-types believe the Somali or Iraqi who was granted British citizenship two minutes ago and now claims to be an Englishman IS English; and has just as much right to England, her name, and her national inheritance, as any ethnically English man or woman,then David and co. are not the guarantors of England’s future, but the guarantors of her death.
joe
7 Mar 08 at 5:30 am
Thanks for the comment, Joe, which I’ve only just noticed. I think you rather misread the poem: where do I say that ‘another man’s lover means as much to [me] as [my] own’?
Also, I don’t actually believe that ‘anybody and everybody can be English’. Agreed, I do have a non-ethnic definition of English national identity and culture; but I also argue in favour of much stricter controls on immigration, which, in the name of the supposed British economic interest, is putting enormous strains on British and in particular English society, and is being used as another excuse to downplay Englishness in favour of a Britishness that imperils England’s very survival as a nation.
On the other hand, those British citizens - note, you use the word - who’ve settled in England and want to see themselves as English should be welcomed as such. In fact, government policy aims to encourage such people to view themselves as British in the first instance, rather than English, Scottish or Welsh. And it’s this that’s helping to foster divisions between ‘native’ English people and newer arrivals.
So I’m in favour of an inclusive Englishness but not an all-inclusive Englishness, which in reality is generally placed at the service of an England-denying Britishness. But what I would ask Joe is that if you want a more exclusive, ethnic Englishness, where do you stop. Do black and mixed-race people born over here not count as English? What about people of Scottish and Irish descent but born in England?
Englishness and England is a nation above in a cultural and social sense - as well as territorial, of course; and it’s this England that I love and seek to defend. And this is an England that is open to the foreigner and to the global culture at the same time as being able to cherish and celebrate its own great history and traditions.
David, aka Britology Watch
9 Apr 08 at 3:55 am
I often visit Britologywatch, David. You help to calm me when I’m wound up by the current situation regarding devolution and also make me think, you take the issues apart and then work through them, step by step.
Keep it up.
Chris Abbott
14 Apr 08 at 6:31 am
Hello David. I agree, your poem is perfect. Stunning rationale wrapped up in beautifully written prose. A lethally persuasive combination. And I do hope Joe feels able to take your words on board. I too believe that Englishness has to be inclusive. Not foolishly so, but as well as including people who have centuries of vested interest, it must include people who are just setting out on that path and truly seek to invest their family’s future in a deep and abiding relationship with England. Thanks for your sanity, Jack Cropper.
Jack Cropper
12 Feb 09 at 7:12 am