Poem by Robert Stephen Hawker

The Scroll

“BRING me,” he said, “that scribe of fame,
Symeon el Siddekah his name:
With parchment skin, and pen in hand,
I would devise my Cornish land.

“Seven goodly manors, fair and wide,
Stretch from the sea to Tamar side:
And Bien-aimé, my hall and bower,
Nestles beneath tall Stratton Tower.

“All these I render to my God,
By seal and signet, knife and sod:
I give and grant to church and poor,
In franc-almoign forevermore.

“Choose ye seven men among the just,
And bid them hold my lands in trust;
On Michael’s morn, and Mary’s day,
To deal the dole, and watch and pray.

“Then bear me coldly o’er the deep,
Mid my own people I would sleep:
Their hearts shall melt, their prayers will breathe,
Where he who loved them rests beneath.

“Mould me in stone as here I lie,
My face upturned to Syria’s sky:
Carve ye this good sword at my side,
And write the legend, ‘True and tried.’

“Let mass be said, and requiem sung;
And that sweet chime I loved be rung:
Those sounds along the northern wall
Shall thrill me like a trumpet-call.”

Thus said he, and at set of sun
The bold Crusader’s race was run.
Seek ye his ruined hall and bower?
Then stand beneath tall Stratton Tower.

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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