The Day of Saints - Day 3, Hawker's Hut

Space to think and reflect is precious. Yesterday, I ventured to Morwenstow and there sat in Hawker's Hut to find my way into writing poetry again. Though the product is something like pastiche, and starting this way feels a bit like cheating, adapting Hawker's poem The Well of St. John has helped me dip, if not yet plunge back in.

First is set out Hawker's original, and further down, and meant as a small tribute to the man, my (current draft) reworking.

The Well of St. John

Robert Stephen Hawker (1803–1875)

On Morwenstow Glebe

They dreamed not in old Hebron, when the sound

Went through the city, that the promised son

Was born to Zachary, and his name was John;

They little thought, that here in this far ground,

Beside the Severn sea, that Hebrew child        

Would be a cherished memory of the wild;

Here, where the pulses of the ocean bound

Whole centuries away, while one meek cell,

Built by the fathers o’er a lonely well,

Still breathes the Baptist’s sweet remembrance round:        

A spring of silent waters with his name,

That from the angel’s voice in music came,

Here in the wilderness so faithful found,

It freshens to this day the Levite’s grassy mound.

---

The Hut of Reverend Hawker

On Vicar's Cliff

They dreamed not in old Plymouth, when the sound

went up through Norley Street, that his first child

Was born to Jacob, parson's son; they smiled.

They could not think, that he, in this near ground,

Beside the Severn sea, from sand to hedge

Would be a cherished memory on this ledge.

Here, where feet carve out a path by day,

Whole centuries away, this one meek cell

Recalls his ambling thoughts above the swell,

And angled like the cliff whereon it sits

Built by the vic'r strange, of wood near found

is daubed with others' sweet remembrances round.

The visit book is filled, the biro gone.

Yet still, in season, ramblers take their snaps,

And ponder holy questions, too. Perhaps.