Edinburgh Poem by John C Bird

It’s where Miss Brodie enjoyed her prime
and beauty rubs shoulders with tenement grime,
where Stevenson roamed the Georgian squares
and Scott has that monument with all those stairs,
where Connery delivered the milk each day
before a licence to kill brought better pay,
where each night the castle gets lit up
like the Murrayfield crowd at the Calcutta Cup,
where you can take a rest on Arthur’s seat
when you tire of the throng on Prince’s Street,
where the east wind blows across the Braids
up the legs of kilties on parades,
where the Botanical Gardens are a rival to Kew
and the des. res. for fauna is Corstorphine Zoo,
where the world comes visiting once a year
for cultural treats from slapstick to Lear,
where Japanese tourists hunting in packs
sample the tartan and whisky macs,
where the Royal Mile leads down to a palace
almost as grand as that viewed by Alice,
where the locals, full of civic pride,
scoff at Big Brother up the Clyde.
There are few more magical places to be
even for Sassenachs just like me.