Lincoln and his cane?

[David Lockmiller]

(08-08-2017 07:29 AM)Eva Elisabeth Wrote:  Thanks David - I now remember this and that I found it a remarkable statement. A self-carved stick with hidden practical features would match a boy (of every age), and what an un-fashy fashion association -
https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/4...-merrilies

In the way that the story was told, I had assumed that Meg Merrilies was an actress that President Lincoln had seen in a play and not a subject of poetry by John Keats. So, I did a bit more research and found out that the poem was in a letter that Keats wrote to his sister.

Letter To Fanny Keats (his sister)

I will endeavour to get rid of my prejudices and tell you fairly about the Scotch.

[Dumfries, July 2nd, 1818.]

In Devonshire they say, “Well, where be ye going?” Here it is, “How is it wi’ yoursel?” A man on the Coach said the horses took a Hellish heap o’ drivin’; the same fellow pointed out Burns’s Tomb with a deal of life—“There de ye see it, amang the trees—white, wi’ a roond tap?”

Yesterday was an immense Horse-fair at Dumfries, so that we met numbers of men and women on the road, the women nearly all barefoot, with their shoes and clean stockings in hand, ready to put on and look smart in the Towns. There are plenty of wretched cottages whose smoke has no outlet but by the door. We have now begun upon Whisky, called here Whuskey,—very smart stuff it is. Mixed like our liquors, with sugar and water, ’tis called toddy; very pretty drink, and much praised by Burns.

Yesterday we visited Burns’s Tomb and this morning the fine Ruins of Lincluden.

[Auchencairn, same day, July 2.]

I had done thus far when my coat came back fortified at all points—so as we lose no time we set forth again through Galloway—all very pleasant and pretty with no fatigue when one is used to it—We are in the midst of Meg Merrilies’s country of whom I suppose you have heard.

Old Meg she was a Gipsy,
And liv’d upon the Moors:
Her bed it was the brown heath turf,
And her house was out of doors.

If you like these sort of Ballads I will now and then scribble one for you—if I send any to Tom I’ll tell him to send them to you.