The thread about William McGonagall’s elegy to “The Ancient Town of Leith”; “Indifference to Practically Everything But Rhyme”

"A classic example of his indifference to practically everything but rhyme"; the withering summary by an Edinburgh Evening News journalist in 2002 when recalling the work "The Ancient Town of Leith" by the poet and tragedian William McGonagall. A man most associated with the city of Dundee, he was born and would die in Edinburgh and is fondly remembered for his prolific output of universally awful poetry. In the words of Hugh McDiarmid: "McGonagall is in a very special category, and has it all to himself." This post retells his 1899 elegy to Leith, a work late in his life that upholds the high standards that we have come to expect from his better known works such as "The Tay Bridge Disaster".