The Spirit Of Redstone Rocks
Come you in m’dear, be not a-feared.
A safe haven for all, this hermitage,
carved out of rust-red rock.
Men and beasts gathered round fires once
For warmth and shelter.
Times past it bustled with life, now ‘tis quiet as the grave.
Bats now, I fancy, and a ghost or two dwell yonder.
It seems but a step ago, year of our Lord 1509, ‘twas said
The body of a king crossed over on the ferry.
I mind the common folk splashed in the shallows to gawp
At him carried to rest at Worcester.
The Severn, now he run fast, seep into the lower caverns.
Times he had not enough flow to float the trows.
Men hung about for days waiting to pull their wares upstream
To Ironbridge and beyond, so’s told.
Cosy in the caves to bide, aye and company,
Though not allus good:
You’d be well to watch your purse, sir,
When the ale flowed faster than the river.
Full benches spilt over with spitting and cursing
And the wenches squealing.
Aye, and the candles guttering, spluttering splashed wax
And an honest man cuffed down for nobbut a jug of ale or a tuppence
In the soiled sawdust.
Things changed when the town bridge was raised.
Ferry and ford no more.
I fancy the decent folk moved in then,
Rooms full of learning,
The children hard at their letters and reckoning.
Dwellings they made an’ all.
Homes for the poor and needy.
Squalid, the town folk said,
But I wonder.
All they wanted was an honest living.
Them’s all gone now, as silt washed away.
Dust to dust, bones of history.
Me, I ponder.
A scrape of boot and swish of gown I might hear
Of a dark night.
Here you new ones come to gaze,
And ‘tis human nature to surmise,
But only I know how it was.
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