25th October
This day is called the feast of St Crispian
And we are apt to promise much.
Glorious this golden soft October,
Fallen and fermenting
Plunging deep into the Kentish Shire.
We begin at Cranbrook with sign and portent good,
Passed thicket and sweet brook,
With chestnut meat and apple red.
To follow the greenwood canyon is our desire.
And you will say today is St Crispian,
And we in it shall be remembered, we happy two,
On Oxney at Wittersham, Ebony and Stone.
And what of the bowman of England.
Called upon to fight at Agincourt on this day,
Raising the two fingered salute,
Defiant and victorious to the end,
This day is victory too, this time in 2009.
For them, still breathing, still golden,
Still feasting , scented mellow,
Citadels of parasols in meadows sweet,
Flowers of the forest, field in seasonal praise.
And the Lamb beckons with its ghostly rooms,
And the night is falling with the crescent moon,
And the last bus to Rye is silently borne,
Night lighted, to the coast.
VH and MW Walk, 25 October 2009
