Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, ed. Poems of Places: An Anthology in 31 Volumes.
England: Vols. I–IV. 1876–79.
The Doom-Well of St. Madron
By Robert Stephen Hawker (18031875)“P
If true to its troth be the palm you bring;
But if a false sigil thy fingers bear,
Lay them the rather on the burning share.”
That solemn friar his boding word;
And blithely he sware as a king he may,
“We tryst for St. Madron’s at break of day.”
Was the cry at Lauds, with Dundagel men;
And forth they pricked upon Routorr side,
As goodly a raid as a king could ride.
With page and with squire at her bridle hand;
And the twice six knights of the stony ring,
They girded and guarded their Cornish king.
And they stood by the monk of the cloistered well;
“Now off with your gauntlets,” King Arthur he cried,
“And glory or shame for our Tamar side.”
When he grasped the waters so soft and mild;
How Sir Lancelot dashed the glistening spray
O’er the rugged beard of the rough Sir Kay.
’T was a bénitée stoup to Sir Belvidere;
How the fountain flashed o’er King Arthur’s Queen,
Say, Cornish dames, for ye guess the scene.
My kinsmen, mine ancient, my Bien-aimé;
Now rede me my riddle, and rede it aright,
Art thou traitorous knave or my trusty knight?”
It bubbled and boiled like a caldron of hell:
He drew and he lifted his quivering limb,
Ha! Sir Judas, how Madron had sodden him.
Still the Tamar River will run as it ran;
Let king or let kaisar be fond or be fell,
Ye may harowe their troth in St. Madron’s well.