Welcome back to The Daily Poem, a podcast from Goldberry Studios.

I'm Sean Johnson, and today is Monday, November 6th, 2020.

Yesterday would have been November 5th.

It was on that day in 1605 that Guy Fox and the number of other conspirators attempted

to assassinate King James I of England by blowing him up.

Fox smuggled barrels and barrels and more barrels of gunpowder into tunnels beneath the Parliament building

and planned to set them ablaze as King James and the rest of Parliament sat in session.

One of the conspirators was overcome by his conscience and revealed the plot to authorities

and not a moment too late, as the story goes, when they found Fox in the tunnels underneath the Parliament building, he was standing match in hand, ready to carry out the attack.

Shortly thereafter, it became customary in the UK to observe November 5th as Guy Fawkes

Day or Remembrance Day or Bonfire Night, partly to give thanks for the salvation of the monarch,

the temporal salvation at any rate, but also to discourage any future attempts of rebellion or disloyalty

by doing things like burning Guy Fox in effigy every year.

In remembrance of that occasion and in the spirit of remembering year after year,

our first poem today is the familiar or semi-familiar children's rhyme that came into being as a fun way of recalling the events of the gunpowder treason,

as it is known.

And the second is a poem by contemporary British poet Malcolm Gait, who writes about

Remembrance Day and several other notable November holidays and occasions.

It's called November's Song.

First, here is the famous nursery rhyme about the gunpowder plot.

Remember, remember the 5th of November gunpowder treason and plot.

I see no reason why gunpowder treason should ever be forgot. Guy Fox, Guy Fox, t'was his intent

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