Latin Poetry Podcast

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This is a song for the retiring professor Fitts in Classical Studies and Archaeology, a hymn to his achievements and stature. It includes a brief mention of his resemblance to the Roman emperor Vespasian (see the photo below). The melody is from an old English folksong, “I Drew My Ship into the Harbor.”

[audio:http://blogs.dickinson.edu/archive/images/hes-dug-a-trench.mp3]

He’s dug a trench in old Mycenae

He’s dug a trench in Scottish glens

He’s dug a trench, and then fell in it

Naught but a crane will lift him out again.

O knees, o knees, why do you fail me?

Come help me ‘scape this blasted ditch.

O lift me up, and off to Boston,

And make another surgeon rich.

Good emperor Fitts, spit of Vespasian,

A finer emperor no land knows

But those of us who’ve seen him naked

Are glad this emperor has his clothes.

With Mary now for green Augusta,

Carlisle’s loss is Georgia’s gain.

There raise a glass to those that love you,

Until we all do meet again.

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