A NORTHUMBRIAN MIDDLE-SCHOOL EPIPHANY (To be Sung to a Gelinaeu Psalm-Tone)

When I was nine in 1970, I played Mechior in the school nativity;
and I banged a big frame-drum from Bethlehem, brought back from a Holy Land holiday by Miss Morrison,
who showed me some choice cyclic Arabic rhythms, that have been with me ever since.

Miss Morrison played upon a shawm, because she played the English Horn;
though that is only what the Yanks, in their funny way,
call the instrument we Brits know as the Cor Anglais.