As I Was Going By Charing Cross
'As I Was Going By Charing Cross' (sometimes referred to as 'As I was going to Charing Cross'), is an English language nursery rhyme. The rhyme was first recorded in the 1840s, but it may have older origins in street cries and verse of the seventeenth century. It refers to the equestrian statue of king Charles I in Charing Cross, London, and may refer to his death or be a puritan satire on royalist reactions to his execution. It has a Roud Folk Song Index number of 20564.
Read more about As I Was Going By Charing Cross: Lyrics, Origin
Famous quotes containing the words charing cross, charing and/or cross:
“I went out to Charing Cross to see Major-General Harrison hanged, drawn and quartered—which was done there—he looking as cheerful as any man could do in that condition.”
—Samuel Pepys (1633–1703)
“Cry;—and upon thy so sore loss
Shall shine the traffic of Jacob’s ladder
Pitched betwixt Heaven and Charing Cross.”
—Francis Thompson (1859–1907)
“There is the grand truth about Nathaniel Hawthorne. He says NO! in thunder; but the Devil himself cannot make him say yes. For all men who say yes, lie; and all men who say no,—why, they are in the happy condition of judicious, unincumbered travellers in Europe; they cross the frontiers into Eternity with nothing but a carpet-bag,—that is to say, the Ego. Whereas those yes-gentry, they travel with heaps of baggage, and, damn them! they will never get through the Custom House.”
—Herman Melville (1819–1891)