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Worting History Poem
The collie dog chalk Hampshire uplands
Subterraneously moving aeons below
Antedeluvian mysteries manifold
Ice Age sculptured, mankind manicured,
Rolling waves of green fields and copses
Riddled, sepulchred , past histories unfold
Destroyed by hook and harrow
Concrete everywhere lying fallow
Iron Age Winkleberry Ring
Yonder Winklersbarrow
Echoes men with metal
Ramparts smooth footpad worn
Ditches for unwary invaders
Barbed wire brambles
Stinger missile nettles
No news of Olaf and other
Warlordeans from overseas
Just Basa of the Basinga tribe led
Occupied in seven hundred
Oft as I dream the byeways
Ancient tracks down Roman Road
Clanking epauletted Centurions
Weigh heavy on my shoulders
Ghosts of men with missions
Marching in rhyme senatorial
Thither Silchester
Hither Winchester
Accompanying time immemorial
Redoubtable Cromwell my liege
Sought shelter in ye olde yew hedge
In the parish of Wortinge
During Basing House siege
Time capsuled pickheads rust beneath
Pikeshafts buried not in bodies, relief,
An earthy testament of history
Swords without ponds and shields
And people to wield them
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No mosaic tapestries lie here
As diaries to ponder
Of earthly toil
No evidence of remains
Just clay and soil
Sand and silt
Rivers revealing
Up to the hilt
Of wars between us
Victoriana in local bric a brac shops
Recollects Jane Austen’s times begone
Courting in frilly fashion
Down Kempshott Lane
Her liaisons with proud folk
Dressed to kill at the ball
Fresh back from their African campaigns
Feted at the local town hall
Again as I imaginate
The Worting Hunt across the landscape
Before it was railroaded
And motorways invented
Foxes fled freely before the horn
Fleet of foot begone, begone
Tally Ho! Hats off! How she bumps!
Those flying horsemen
Beat up the countryside
To flush out their next victim
Leaping brooks
In their carnivorous quests
Never permitting
Their quarries to rest
Blood sports written in blood
Congealed, splattered
Genocidal conquests
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Hitler’s bombs missed
This little precious rustic spot
As much as he did try
To destroy our industry
Now road kill persists
Deer, pheasant and all
Feeding the carrion crow
Magpies voracious
In the hedgerows
Road rage is all upon us
To every horizon
Blinded by blind people
Tarmac and dust
Copyright Andrew Watterson 2011