Poem by Robert Stephen Hawker

A Croon on Hennacliff

THUS said the rushing raven
  Unto his hungry mate,—
“Ho! gossip! for Bude Haven:
  There be corpses six or eight.
Cawk! cawk! the crew and skipper
  Are wallowing in the sea:
So there ’s a savory supper
  For my old dame and me.”

“Cawk! gaffer! thou art dreaming,
  The shore hath wreckers bold;	
Would rend the yelling seamen,
  From the clutching billows hold.
Cawk! cawk! they ’d bound for booty
  Into the dragon’s den:
And shout, for ‘death or duty,’	
  If the prey were drowning men.”

Loud laughed the listening surges
  At the guess our grandame gave:
You might call them Boanerges,
  From the thunder of their wave.
And mockery followed after
  The sea-bird’s jeering brood:
That filled the skies with laughter,
  From Lundy Light to Bude.

“Cawk! cawk!” then said the raven,
  “I am fourscore years and ten,
Yet never in Bude Haven
  Did I croak for rescued men.—
They will save the captain’s girdle,
  And shirt, if shirt there be;
But leave their blood to curdle
  For my old dame and me.”

So said the rushing raven
  Unto his hungry mate,—
“Ho! gossip! for Bude Haven:
  There be corpses six or eight.
Cawk! cawk! the crew and skipper
  Are wallowing in the sea:
O, what a savory supper
  For my old dame and me.”

1. Annot of Benallay
2. The Ringers of Lancell’s Tower
3. The Well of St. John
4. The Cell
5. The Doom-Well of St. Madron

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