The Master of Raasay and Skye
emerges immaculately late
from long-lost centuries.
Part Scarlet Pimpernel, part Cardew the Cad,
he’s leaning over iron bannisters
in tails and spongebags,
bowtie and buttonhole crumpled for carelessness,
uttering his famous treble boy-call.
A dozen miniature gentlemen
in bumfreezers and Eton collars
come crashing down green corridors
to answer his lordship’s whim,
but he can’t remember what it was.
“I’m sorry, chaps,” he stammers.
“Perhaps you’d like to hear
my new record before you go?”
We’re standing waiting on the stairs
of our ancient boarding house,
when a distant bassline
trembles the foundations.
Now since my baby left me
I found a new place to dwell
It’s down at the end of Lonely Street
at Heartbreak Hotel
Before we know what is happening,
we are shuffling polished shoes
to an alien tempo, a villainous backbeat.
We tumble down stairs
and out into a changing world,
dusk already shimmering
with unearthly potential,
a miraculous stardom.
The Master of Raasay and Skye
commences his Regency glide
into history. Veiled in river mist,
he follows his inevitable destiny
towards his waiting seat
in the House of Lords,
the petals of yesterday’s buttonhole
blowing in the wind of change.
Hugo Williams is a winner of the TS Eliot prize and the Queen’s gold medal for poetry. His latest collection is Fast Music (Faber)
Illustration by Chris Riddell
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