“Anne was devoured by secret regret that she had not been born in Camelot. Those days, she said, were so much more romantic than the present.”
My grandmother was an incredibly dramatic, romantic woman. I distinctly remember one holiday get together, when everyone sat around the table a little too late and too long, empty wine bottles and half opened party poppers and my mom bustling around clearing dishes while the rest of talked and talked.
These late night ‘after party’ scenarios always really gave my grandmother a chance to shine. On this particular occasion she decided to recite “The Highwayman” by Alfred Noyes, a poem she had memorized in grade school. Here she was in her late 90s and she still remembered every line. When she got to the line "When they shot him down on the highway / Down like a dog on the highway” she paused for emphasis - “like a DAG on the highway!” - ‘my teacher always said to shout it like DAG instead of Dog - far more dramatic!’ she explained.
We all sat there amused and entranced. I can still see the joyful gleam in my grandmother’s eyes as she fell into the rhythm of the poem and the tragic, oh-so-romantic story of the doomed love between Bess and her renegade Highwayman.
I think of this scene now because I always think of my grandmother when I think of the delights of poetry. I also think of her when I think of Anne Shirley of Anne of Green Gables. They were surely, to use Anne’s phrase, kindred spirits.
Indeed, who could forget Anne Shirley’s impassioned recitation of “The Highwayman”? Anne, like my grandmother, was a romantic soul. No wonder she was drawn to grand poetry and ballads! The other poem Anne truly takes to heart is “The Lady of Shalott” by Alfred Lord Tennyson, the famed ballad of the noblewoman locked in a tower and cursed to weave only the images in her mirror. If she looks away she will be cursed, though she doesn’t know what the curse entails.
