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Rutupiae

The beach along the Saxon Shore

          Has drifted as the years have passed

          And Roman walls no longer cast

Their shadows where the tidal bore

Once carried Claudius, who claimed

          The conquest of another race,

          One more triumphal arch in place

Over the butchered and the maimed.

But looking at this tourist site

          The tidy walls, the well-clipped hedge

          It's hard to sense the cutting edge

Which decimated Britiain's right

To claim this island and its coast

          - now basking in the morning light -

          As we set off towards the sight

Of Augustine's inflated boast

That he brought Christianity

          To pacify the British tribes

          Who, left alone, would have survived

To find their way to amity.

Dr Brian Hick summer 2011

©copyright Sally Hick 7.7.23