Recorded on the Watchman Overlook in Zion National Park. There are always too may people at Zion, but I found a spot where I could have some quiet privacy and record a poem. Unfortunately, technology was conspiring against me, and so this sounds kinda lousy. Sorry.

Also, I referred to the trail as "The Watchman" but what I meant was the Watchman _Overlook_: a much less ambitious undertaking.

This is another one of those poems that is popular with people who don't really like poetry. That's not fair, even if Walter Scott kinda deserves his reputation.

It makes me sad that my own children have very little positive to say about the United States. This is where they were born and where they have always lived, and I want them to love it (even if they're not big fans of the government or the political parties). I grew up saying the Pledge of Allegiance, and I think it made an impact on my thinking. I am a pretty standard educated-liberal guy, who votes with the bloc of educated-liberal people -- but I refuse to give up the symbol of the flag to other people. I refuse to make patriotism a partisan issue.

Which is kind of funny that my analysis of this poem focuses on the landscape more than the government.

#### TEXT OF POEM

"Innominatus," by Sir Walter Scott

Breathes there the man with soul so dead,

Who never to himself hath said,

"This is my own, my native land!"

Whose heart hath ne'er within him burn'd

As home his footsteps he hath turn'd

From wandering on a foreign strand?

If such there breathe, go, mark him well;

For him no Minstrel raptures swell;

High though his titles, proud his name,

Boundless his wealth as wish can claim;

Despite those titles, power, and pelf,

The wretch, concentred all in self,

Living, shall forfeit fair renown,

And, doubly dying, shall go down

To the vile dust from whence he sprung,

Unwept, unhonour'd, and unsung.