Out of Date

Out of Date

1720 and it’s the 13^th of June and the first Duke has earned his ermine.

Previous Earls, Barons and a Marquess or two glance down upon the vermin.

A spirited Celt, a Saxon Fair and some Romans who landed at Poole harbour

Are looking on and looking down, sighing in the shady arbour.

Alas, alack their reign was short and gone they were in a blink

Like fellow Pliosaurs from Weymouth Bay, the line became extinct.

From 155 million years ago or in 1843 in verdant Dorset they briefly did flourish

Families of dusty dinosaurs or progenitors the lovely county did nourish.

An asteroid hit or reptiles caught cold, a peer dies without his wish,

It is hard to chart events that might have snuffed out gentry or fish

Anachronisms now that once were fashionable wave ‘au revoir’

To a glorious family motto ‘Either never attempt, or accomplish’.

A family motto, the simple maxim they lived by

and both dinosaur and man join the extinct Dorset Society Alumni.


By Linda Prince