Tuesday, October 30, 2007

The McCanns: I come with strength of the living day,

I was going to publish a post on The McCanns tonight but for reasons that will become clear at some point, I have decided against it.

However, it is time to close the previous McCann post to comments, and start afresh - especially in light of what Sydney's online edition of the Daily Telegraph, quite accurately as "McCann disgrace: Maddie cash used for mortgage"

I am in a confident mood and I have every right to be, so I will leave my critics with a few words of wisdom from a fellow Australian, Henry Lawson. I especially like the last line. There is more truth in that closing sentence than you have ever come close to in the last five months of trying and failing, to wear us down.

You grope for Truth in a language dead—
In the dust ’neath tower and steeple!
What know you of the tracks we tread?
And what know you of our people?
‘I must read this, and that, and the rest,’
And write as the cult expects me?—
I’ll read the book that may please me best,
And write as my heart directs me!

You were quick to pick on a faulty line
That I strove to put my soul in:
Your eyes were keen for a ‘dash’ of mine
In the place of a semi-colon—
And blind to the rest. And is it for such
As you I must brook restriction?
‘I was taught too little?’ I learnt too much
To care for a pedant’s diction!

Must I turn aside from my destined way
For a task your Joss would find me?
I come with strength of the living day,
And with half the world behind me.