Poetry Magazines - The best collection of poetry magazines online - Simon Armitage

This is a story they told down in Devon,
Concerning Francis Drake and his wife – his second wife,
Elizabeth, of a good family,
Of honest West Country folk.
There was an understanding that he would marry her
But not until he had circumnavigated
The whole vast globe. She agreed to wait,
With reservations – “I don’t know how Mary,
His first wife, put up with this sort of thing,
And I wasn’t aware that the world was round –
But all the learned say so, it seems –
But he’ll be a good catch, and a good husband
So I might as well wait a few months or so.”
She waited and waited, but no news came.
A second suitor was dangling after her –
I don’t know his name, but let us suppose
It was Irchard of Taunton Dean, from the next county,
Already known for an unsuccessful wooer
(There’s a ballad about it). But perhaps he’d acquired now
A little more finesse. Eventually she agreed
To this proposal – that the banns be read in church.
She should have thought twice, she should have asked the Spaniards
They could have told her El Draque’s familiar
Informed him of everything. His crew likewise recounted
How a shag, a boatswain-bird, or a mollymawk
Would fly round his mast, and then, suddenly,
They’d spot a Spanish treasure-ship loaded with gold
Or marketable slaves, or they’d sail to a city
Ripe for the sacking, its great cathedral
Crammed with jewel-encrusted ex votoes.
She should have been wary when a coach-horse beetle
Crossed her path, and erected its tail,
Emitting a stink, or a sharp-nosed shrew
Peeped out from a dunghill, or a yellowhammer
Bread-and-no-cheesed her from on top of a gatepost.
That wicked bird which scribbled on its eggs
Heathen hieroglyphics and cabalistic symbols,
And drinks a drop of the devil’s blood
Every Mayday morning, as the rhyme said –
For any of them could have been Drake’s spy,
The vehicle of his familiar spirit.
She took no heed, and got tired of waiting.
At last she submitted to Irchard’s suing –
The banns were to be read in front of the altar.
But as they stood there, and the priest had got
As far as that bit which speaks of
“Just cause or impediment” – suddenly
There was a rumbling under the earth,
And through the crypt, and through the church floor,
A cannonball came. And stood there sizzling-hot.
But its momentum continued no further.
For Drake, a little off course
For circumnavigation, was sailing at the Antipodes
And somehow – from demon or bird or flying-fish –
Had got to know what was going on.
He gave orders, and fired a cannonball
Down into the depths of the ocean.
It pierced the sea-floor, and infernal strata
Down to the centre, and singed the old Devil’s arse
As it flew by. And then it surfaced
Right there in England, and in that church,
Where those two were standing before the altar.
Elizabeth and Irchard. They got the message,
And she dismissed her unsatisfactory suitor –
“I’m plighted to Master Francis,” she said
“And he’ll be back in his own good time.”
“Maybe he will,” said Irchard. “But you
Can marry your sea-dog, your salty sailor –
And ‘Yo-ho-ho!’ sing I to both of you.”
Drake did come back, and he landed at Deptford,
And the queen came aboard and dubbed him “Sir Francis”
There on the deck of his ship, and greatly appreciated
The gold and silver which he had brought her.
And after that he went down to Devon,
Claimed his own Bess, and made her his lady.
It was sometime later, as we’ve all heard,
He had time to finish a game of bowls
Upon Plymouth Hoe, and beat the Armada after.
And as for the marriage, I’ve no information,
But I’m inclined to surmise
That it worked out.