RUNNYMEDE

 

I sit in the green and pleasant corner of this land known as Runnymede where the Thames laps its way ever closer to London.

Trees line the river’s edge and the Willows that stand weeping into the river might well be weeping for what man has done to the land.

For this place though beautiful still was once more so.

The senses cannot fail to notice man’s hand, the ears are assailed by the constant hum of motorway traffic and by jets arriving and departing Heathrow and the nostrils are filled with the stench of aviation fuel.

The area is littered with inappropriate buildings and roads of every type scar the land.

On the river the surface of the water bares the tell-tale rainbow pattern of patches of fuel slick and at its edge the 21^st century flotsam of tin cans, McDonald’s wrappers, fag ends and paper cups.

If King John, who under pressure from his barons signed the Magna Carta here in 1215, was to stand here now and see what we have done he might well fall upon his own sword.

SILENT POOL

 

The amorous King John
Took by ungentlemanly force
The woodcutter’s daughter
And put her upon his horse
Taking her from Albury village
To a place called the silent pool
The girl, scared and crying
Prayed his ardour would cool
But he pressed his intent upon her
So into the dark lake she fled
Mounted, he drove her ever deeper
Until the poor girl was dead
Now on the silent pool at midnight
The maiden can be seen there
Where the amorous King John
Did drown the life from her