A Bardic Lay of Hougue Bie

Something for the Spring Equinox. This was written for a poetry competition and while not a winner was in the top ten! The poem had to be about Hougue Bie, and I think I've got pretty well everything I know about it there! One of the longest poems I have ever written.

A Bardic Lay of Hougue Bie

Memory passed to memory in the tribe:
Before the written words, the scribe
Of rituals and ancestors, our own past,
And stories told when children asked;
The priest would light the lamps inside,
Where lay the bones of those that died,
Seeking wisdom from the sacred mound,
While we gathered in silence, all around;
The sun rising, the dawn so very near:
We feel the breeze, we feel the fear;
This sacred time, this awesome night:
Through the passage, a line of light,
A finger pointing to the farthest wall;
The priest announces to one and all,
In chants, the time in the ancient lay:
The season come for planting day;
The sun has told us spring is here,
Of the turning wheel of our year;
But now this we will leave behind:
The ancestors have not been kind;
In storms, the wind, crops that fail,
The gods show us a different tale;
The dragon’s flame is spitting fire:
Thunder breaks, on funeral pyre;
Ancestors silent, speak no more,
And priest has learnt another lore,
Of sun, the moon, and falling sky,
Another path, or our time to die;
Now is the time, this the final day,
And after the sunsets final ray,
Seal the stone mound, leave alone,
Forget the language of the bone.

Norse men seeking treasure came,
Break open mound, it was a shame!
But finding no gold or silver there,
Sealed once more in their despair;
The Christians build a holy shrine,
Upon the summit, a fine design;
And Richard Mabon left his mark:
Jerusalem oratory, simple, stark;
The Holy Sepulchre, Christ born,
And also wall paintings did adorn
The chapels looking down on high,
And chantry when he came to die;
The Reformers swept this all away:
Made out that he had feet of clay;
Days of destruction, empty shell:
Gone the Doom that spoke of hell;
The preachers denounce and inspire:
Destroy like dragon breathing fire!

And so to legend, of those dragon days:
Stories told by fireside, of ancient lays;
Fire and destruction, and noble knight:
The Seigneur of Hambye, and his fight,
Against the great worm, bringing terror,
He came to fight, our own torchbearer;
Our Golden Legend, the dragon slayer:
Until his own squire turned betrayer,
Killed his master, and took his wife,
Until dream time brought him strife;
Awoke so fearful, so short of breath,
Confessed to all, sentenced to death,
The mound a tribute for Seigneur slain:
Never such tale so tall, it’s very plain!

Nothing stirred beneath the mound
The dragon slumbered underground

Prince’s tower was built upon the hill:
Folly of its day, there no longer still;
La Tour d'Auvergne, its formal name:
Gothic revival as bright as a flame;
But Romanticism's fire so burnt out,
A bright vision fading and in doubt;
Antiquarians consider with a frown:
And so the tower was pulled down!

Antiquarians dug inside the ground:
Behold! The ancient dolmen found;
Revealed once more to light of day,
And tourists crouch along the way,
To the chamber inside the stone,
Where found grave goods and bone.

And so the unsealing is complete:
Equinox comes, and merry meet!
New pagans gather at the dawn:
Greet the sun’s ray newly born,
As in silence, it marks the day,
Down the ancient passage way.

Now the lay of Hougue Bie has been told:
To modern times from olden wold!