The Basket Maker Poem by john thomas

On Thanet Isle off Kentish coast,
The Land that bore the Saxon host,
Wove long in to a fire lit night
The callused hands of a Basketwright.

Aside him sat his tender bride
Who bore the son, who’d be his pride,
Who’d learn to split and work the reed,
And carry on this English breed

Though cold and dampened to the bone
No word of sorrow did this Wright moan,
His baskets were to cross the sea
For Wellington, Waterloo, and Victory!

Through night grew worse the Baskets cough -
Though tender wife did ply the broth,
And aching limbs did slow the weave,
But from his post he would not leave.

Before the dawn on Thanet Isle,
Apart from Wellington by many mile,
A widow cried and mourned her loss
And Waterloo’s grave bore one more cross.