Hotspur Poem by David Lewis Paget

The arrows flew like a storm of hail,
Half the King's army fell,
For every arrow had found its mark
And the prince was hit as well,
So Hotspur rallied his men to take
The Standard from the crown,
But when he opened his visor
One of their arrows cut him down.

How are the mighty fallen,
How the prince had sat and wept,
To see the body of Hotspur
On the date that his fate had kept,
He'd helped King Henry onto the throne
But Henry played him false,
And now the Lord of the Marches lay
For some god-forsaken cause.

They buried him down at Whitchurch
With full honours as his due,
But he was larger than life, and so
The muttering rumours grew,
King Henry had him disinterred
To prove that he was dead,
And ran a spear through his body
With two millstones at his head.

The wrath of a reigning monarch
Owes no debt to loyal deeds,
The times that the Percy's fought his wars
Had kept his borders free,
They'd routed the Scottish armies
And they'd kept the peace in Wales,
But once they had tried to thwart him
He rewarded them with nails.

They quartered Sir Harry Hotspur
Sent his head on up to York,
The rest of him went to Bristol, London
Chester, so they'd talk,
The rebels saw that their champion
Was well and truly dead,
For looking over his former lands
At York, had stared his head.

Some folk are living and dying, with
No line to say they've been,
Whether a peasant or nobleman,
A King or a handsome Queen,
But some go on in the history books
For a thousand years or more,
With a heart like Harry Hotspur's
Beating upon our shore.

13 January 2013