by R.P.Weston and Bert Lee, as performed by Stanley Holloway

In the Tower of London, large as life,
The ghost of Ann Boleyn walks, they declare.
Poor Ann Boleyn was once King Henry’s wife –
Until he made the Headsman bob her hair!
Ah yes! he did her wrong long years ago,
And she comes up at night to tell him so.

With her head tucked underneath her arm
She walks the Bloody Tower!
With her head tucked underneath her arm
At the Midnight hour –

She comes to haunt King Henry, she means giving him ‘what for’,
Gad Zooks, she’s going to tell him off for having spilt her gore.
And just in case the Headsman wants to give her an encore
She has her head tucked underneath her arm!

With her head tucked underneath her arm
She walks the Bloody Tower!
With her head tucked underneath her arm
At the Midnight hour.

Along the draughty corridors for miles and miles she goes,
She often catches cold, poor thing, it’s cold there when it blows,
And it’s awfully awkward for the Queen to have to blow her nose
With her head tucked underneath her arm!

Sometimes gay King Henry gives a spread
For all his pals and gals – a ghostly crew.
The headsman carves the joint and cuts the bread,
Then in comes Ann Boleyn to ‘queer’ the ‘do’;
She holds her head up with a wild war whoop,
And Henry cries ‘Don’t drop it in the soup!’

With her head tucked underneath her arm
She walks the Bloody Tower!
With her head tucked underneath her arm
At the Midnight hour.

The sentries think that it’s a football that she carries in,
And when they’ve had a few they shout ‘Is Ars’nal going to win?’
They think it’s Alec James, instead of poor old Ann Boleyn
With her head tucked underneath her arm!

With her head tucked underneath her arm
She walks the Bloody Tower!
With her head tucked underneath her arm
At the Midnight hour.

One night she caught King Henry, he was in the Canteen Bar.
Said he ‘Are you Jane Seymour, Ann Boleyn or Cath’rine Parr?
For how the sweet san fairy ann do I know who you are
With your head tucked underneath your arm!’

The odd thing about this writing by Amy Gerstler in Bitter Angel: Poems is how scary it sounds to someone who has sailed across an ocean.

I have a fish’s tail, so I’m not qualified to love you.
But I do. Pale as an August sky, pale as flour milled
a thousand times, pale as the icebergs I have never seen,
and twice as numb–my skin is such a contrast to the rough
rocks I lie on, that from far away it looks like I’m a baby
riding a dinosaur. The turn of centuries or the turn
of a page means the same to me, little or nothing.
I have teeth in places you’d never suspect. Come. Kiss me
and die soon. I slap my tail in the shallows–which is to say
I appreciate nature. You see my sisters and me perched
on rocks and tiny island here and there for miles:
untangling our hair with our fingers, eating seaweed.

Late at night, with a bright moon over dark shimmery waters and a light enough breeze to just echo the “slap” of a tail meant to “appreciate nature”… you definitely can hear that Siren song. It’s both the worst and best kind of pretty.

As John F. Kennedy published in 1964…

When power leads man towards arrogance, poetry reminds him of his limitations. When power narrows the areas of man’s concern, poetry reminds him of the richness and diversity of his existence. When power corrupts, poetry cleanses, for art establishes the basic human truths which must serve as the touchstones of our judgement.

The BBC tries to argue that most people are condemned to follow the reactions of those around them:

One of the first habits we acquire is to glance at mum before deciding how to react to what’s around us. It is called social referencing. How do I know if I should be afraid or eager? I check the reaction elsewhere.

That characteristic equips us well. To find out what others think before we act makes sense: they might know something.

Sure, some find comfort in groups and will only follow others but this hardly explains the opaqueness, lying and selfish parts of the equation. Clearly some are interested in riding a wave they know will fail and fall hard as they see themselves disconnected and immune from the forces of water.