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was reciting his work at a pub, a waiter threw a wet towel at him. Yet McGonagall tried to put a positive spin on events. As McGonagall tells it, “While … giving a good recitation, it helps to arrest the company’s attention from the drink.… Such was the case with me.” So the pub owner, upset that everyone was listening to McGonagall and not drinking up, had the waiter throw the towel at McGonagall and so end the poetry reading.
    Another time a publican threw peas at McGonagall. Once again the poet had a positive interpretation. “The reason, I think for the publican throwing peas at me,” he wrote in a preface, “is because I say, to the devil with your glass in my song, ‘The Rattling Boy from Dublin,’ and he, no doubt considered it had a teetotal tendency about it, and, for that reason, he had felt angry, and had thrown the peas at me.”
    McGonagall was what is politely termed a “naive” poet. In other words, he had no ear for meter, a knack for choosing the most banal of subjects, and a tendency to stretch mightily for a rhyme. But the overall effect was uniformly entertaining. He drew great crowds to his readings, in spite of—or, more accurately, because of—his lack of talent.
    The following three selections concerning a railway bridge built over Dundee’s river Tay are best read in swift succession.
from
The Railway Bridge of the Silvery Tay
    Beautiful Railway Bridge of the Silvery Tay!
With your numerous arches and pillars in so grand array,
And your central girders, which seem to the eye
To be almost towering to the sky.
The greatest wonder of the day,
And a great beautification to the River Tay,
Most beautiful to be seen,
Near by Dundee and the Magdalen Green.
    Beautiful Railway Bridge of the Silvery Tay!
That has caused the Emperor of Brazil to leave
His home far away, incognito in his dress,
And view thee ere he passed along en route to Inverness.
    ….
    Beautiful Railway Bridge of the Silvery Tay!
I hope that God will protect all passengers
By night and by day,
And that no accident will befall them while crossing
The Bridge of the Silvery Tay,
For that would be most awful to be seen
Near by Dundee and the Magdalen Green.
The Tay Bridge Disaster
    Beautiful Railway Bridge of the Silv’ry Tay
Alas! I am very sorry to say
That ninety lives have been taken away
On the last Sabbath day of 1879,
Which will be remembered for a very long time.
’Twas about seven o’clock at night,
And the wind it blew with all its might,
And the rain came pouring down,
And the dark clouds seem’d to frown,
And the Demon of the air seem’d to say—
“I’ll blow down the Bridge of Tay.”
    ….
    It must have been an awful sight,
To witness in the dusky moonlight,
While the Storm Fiend did laugh, and angry did bray,
Along the Railway Bridge of the Silv’ry Tay.
Oh! ill-fated Bridge of the Sil’vry Tay,
I must now conclude my lay
By telling the world fearlessly without the least dismay,
That your central girders would not have given way,
At least many sensible men do say,
Had they been supported on each side with buttresses,
At least many sensible men confesses,
For the stronger we our houses do build,
The less chance we have of being killed.
from
An Address to the New Tay Bridge
    Beautiful new railway bridge of the Silvery Tay,
With your strong brick piers and buttresses in so grand array,
And your thirteen central girders, which seem to my eye
Strong enough all windy storms to defy.
from
A Tale of the Sea
    ’Twas on the 8th April, on the afternoon of that day,
That the little village of Louisberg was thrown into a wild state of dismay,
And the villagers flew to the beach in a state of wild uproar,
And in a dory they found four men were cast ashore.
    Then the villagers, in surprise, assembled about the dory,
And they found that the bottom of the boat was gory;
Then their hearts were seized with sudden dread,
When they discovered that two of the men were dead.
    And the two survivors were exhausted from