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Unread 05-14-2022, 12:32 PM
F.F. Teague F.F. Teague is offline
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Join Date: Jul 2017
Location: Gloucestershire, UK
Posts: 1,790
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Hi John,

Thanks for your latest contributions. I'm sort of drifting in and out of consciousness at the moment, but Allen's piece on Met put me in mind of my one poem in dactylic hexameter, so I'll just copy-and-paste that from the Word doc. It's part of the Scilly series, so it's silly. There's a little preamble, which I'll email


Troytown

'St Agnes Isle has a southern position as shown on the modern maps;
to her west side flows a channel, 'tis one of the narrowest smallest gaps
carved between island and rocks, here the Western Rocks, site of a thousand-wreck –
not least the SS Thames, as we heard tell while we sat on Old Chuck Steel's deck.

'Come 1680, the General Lighthouse Authority surveyed coasts
all around England to re-draw the sea charts and recommend lighting posts;
they gained permission to build and maintain on St Agnes one shipping aid –
later that year saw the plans approved, labourers hired, and foundations laid.

'St Agnes Lighthouse stood one-hundred-thirty-eight footfalls above the sea,
flashing her twenty-one eyes for ships' captains and crews most reliably,
fired by fierce coals burning brightly beneath her stout head with its wind vane hat –
boats, steamships, frigates steered far from the rocks to the relative sailing flat.

'Pleased with her triumphs, a young lad of Agnes decided to build a maze
made of grey pebbles and lain on the grass where the island sheep liked to graze;
maybe this lad had read Homer at school so he knew of the ancient Troy,
far north-west city whose walls have inspired many builders and brought them joy.

'Troy's walls were famous for guarding the city from raiders and foreign rule,
labyrinthine were they, placed to defend hilltop citadel, finest jewel;
one day, 1180 BCE, a big horse found a trick-way in,
birthed forty enemy soldiers at night, all the while wearing ghastly grin.

'Nevertheless the walls' great reputation stands tall through the land of time,
raising the maze of St Agnes and elsewhere, where crops seed and church bells chime;
this muse suggests, they are homage to forms of protection on Planet Earth,
conjuring safety for everyone through their stout stones and their goodly girth.'

��

Last edited by F.F. Teague; 05-14-2022 at 06:50 PM. Reason: Preamble :-]