They screened On Her Majesty's Secret Service in the UK on Saturday, and towards the end Diana Rigg's character tried to distract Blofeld, and ingratiate herself with him, by citing poetry - something about when tomorrow dawns you will be master of the world, all the slaves in the market place will be yours, all the hammers will ring on the anvils for you - I'm paraphrasing, not quoting. Anyone have any idea if it is a 'real' poem, as opposed to something written for the film and, if so, where I can find it to read the rest?

The other Marian is in charge of poetry in movies. I tried Google and IMDB, but no luck. I did see a note on the newsgroup alt.quotations where someone speculated it was written for the movie itself:

[tinyurl.com]

"I still remember part of a poem recited by Diana Riggs in the James Bond
movie "On Her Majesty's Secret Service." I've never been able to track it
down and believe it might be invented:


Thy dawn my lord, thy dawn.
For thee it creeps across the lawn,
For thee the flowers bloom and birds fly
For the ******something**** sing "

Thanks, Hugh - your link led me to an entirely unconnected discovery - that a song I've known since a child 'The Minstrel Boy' is actually a poem by Thomas Moore! I'd still like the rest of the James Bond poem, though - if it was written for the film, it did a very competent job of suggesting it's an excerpt from a longer, and quite old, piece.

Was it some part of this passage from James Elroy Flecker's play 'Hassan'?

Thy dawn, O Master of the world, thy dawn;
The hour the lilies open on the lawn,
The hour the grey wings pass beyond the mountains,
The hour of silence, when we hear the fountains,
The hour that dreams are brighter and winds colder,
The hour that young love wakes on a white shoulder,

O Master of the world, the Persian Dawn.
That hour, O Master, shall be bright for thee:
Thy merchants chase the morning down the sea,
The braves who fight thy war unsheathe the sabre,
The slaves who work thy mines are lashed to labour,
For thee the waggons of the world are drawn—
The ebony of night, the red of dawn!

In the play, this is the song sung to the Caliph by the prisoner Ishak, who had been condemned to be beheaded at dawn, which so flattered the Caliph that he ordered the executioner to sheathe his sword:

Marian, I'm curious as to whether or not, Ian's reference is the one you were seeking.


Les

Yes, it was definitely the right reference - I particularly liked (and therefore recognised) the 3 lines starting 'Thy merchants' - I thought I'd acknowledged it and hadn't. I certainly intended to, but went off at a tangent - I was pretty sure there was something about hammers and anvils in it, so went looking for quotations from the title of the play, and then the play itself , never found it , but never got back to the thread! Sorry, Ian - I was very pleased you found it for me, and it was rude of me not to say so.

Thanks for responding, Marian. A little mystery solved.

Les