I wandered lonely in the crowd
Whose breath with patriotic fever held
When all at once I saw a cloud
A host, of golden medals held.
Beside the lake, upon the seas
Our standard fluttering in the breeze
Not just by sail or jumping horse
Nor oars forever backward heaved
We get those all the time of course
No, these are special it’s believed
Three score expected, maybe more,
Before they leave the contest floor
Those against us tried their best
but we persisted, efforts bold
forged on ahead to win the test
and yet another medal gold
I cheered–and cheered—but little thought
What wealth this show to me had brought.
In time when to grandkids I’ll lie
About the games I saw this year
So bright the sun, so blue the sky
I’ll shed one retrospective tear
when telling of the simple joys
Of all our golden girls and boys.
Boadicea's Chariot 
Mr Mackie: Apostrophic malfunction at head of second line duly amended.
for Bearsy “It just did not look right”
Hello LW. Very late but I have been having broadband problems and I didn’t see this until you were declared the winner, hence I didn’t see the dreaded errant apostrophe error.
It’s looks fine now, and it’s a very pleasing pome. 🙂
Hello Ara: For the avoidance of doubt the second line originally began “Who’s breath——-”
as in “Who’s spaceship is the Tardis” not a question, just a statement of fact. Confusing innit?
Ah, LW, now I understand. It’s not confusing, well at least not to me, that is. Who’s is short for who is, so that doesn’t make a great deal of sense in this context. Like who is spaceship is the tardis? That’s not quite what you meant.
Whose is the possessive. Whose spaceship is this, or to whom does it belong?
Ara it’s all in jest but the Tardis belongs to Who (no, it’s not a question ) he (Who is his name) is a doctor in the TV series Dr. Who. and it’s his spaceship. Hence: “Who’s spaceship is the Tardis”.
I understand he also played first base in baseball back in the forties. As in “Who’s on first” copyright Abbot and Costello.
Ah, you can tell I am not a Dr. Who fan, but then back to your original second line, LW: who is breath with patriotic….
I think I’m with Mr Mackie here! 🙂
Ara: Dr. Who was there, in the crowd,—– very emotional he was,—- held his breath and turned blue. It’s all part of the poetic license I have obtained from Mr Mackie.
Hee hee, LW. 🙂
I’ve just spotted a couple of punctuation er…… only kidding, LW. You won the competition, so who cares? 😉
Lucky to get away with rhyming “held” with “held” IMHO so I will say no more.
What about “Whose breath with patriotic fever swelled”?
All academic of course, since you won, but just a thought from one who couldn’t even begin to write a pome about the subject.
Just ignore me, LW.
Wonderful, I might do a little surreptitious post award editing, there does not seem to be anyone around to object.
🙂
OK then. If we’re doing druthers on your worthy winner, LW, I’ll just point out that I spotted the ‘held’ held’ but ignored it because both Janus 1 and the Dream Team of JW/C who were a joint nose behind you also strayed rhyme-wise.
Second line of Janus’ (I’m a traditionalist and do not like the modern conceit of Janus’s) verses 1 and 4 should surely have ended ‘ane’ and not ‘ame’?
And JW managed to rhyme ‘come’ with ‘gun’. Does not work, even in Weegie.
Druther-wise, you could, in my opinion, have saved yourself a lot of grief by using ‘Their’ instead of plowtering into this whole Who’s/Whose glaur.
Floundering (plowtering) into mud (glaur) in Jockland, for the avoidance of doubt.
Plodging through the clarts in Sunderland. 🙂
Quite Mr. M. and for the avoidance….etc. …fever (line two) was not the word I was looking for either but fervor (in Yank that is). Well I did say ” in haste” and it did take all of twenty minutes start to finish.
Bearsy: “Hip deep in the big muddy” in southern Maryland.
I wandered lonely in the crowd
their heads with patriotic fervor swelled
when all at once I saw a cloud
a host of golden medals held
Has some promise…..
Whose is genitive = of whom; who’s = who is. Simples. 🙂
LW, “Well I did say ” in haste” and it did take all of twenty minutes start to finish.” Now you’re just showing off, in my opinion. 😉
True, that was to upload and format, it took me three weeks to write.
😀
OZ