1190

To the Master of Vectis

I'll set Medusa where you lay to dine

To ward off any evil that may chance,

With gifts from Ceres, Attis and the winds

Above a band of sea folk to entrance.

I will set Orpheus to guard your door,

Surrounded by the animals you love,

The monkey that you found in Appledoor,

Your rabbit and Britannia's turtle dove.

I'll give you gladiators in a fight

Gullus in his costume for the play

And Bacchus to carouse into the night

Thanksgiving for the wine and for the hay.

All this with scrolls like vines to link the stories

With frescoes to refelct their marbled glories.

My great-grandfather set up these mosiacs

And we've the tablets that he left behind

With instructions...

Brian Hick August 2012

©copyright Sally Hick 2.7.24

 1190

To the Master Builder

We'd like the floors to show what we believe,

Not arrogantly, but so that our friends

Will know as they are welcomed and received

That kindness and acceptance to the end

Are at the heart of all that keeps us true,

Whether in the fields of ripening corn,

The cattle on the hills, or ale we brew

As our forefathers have done since that dawn

When they first settled Vectis and these hills

Were gradually shaped by Ceres' hand

Into the pastures and the wooded rills

Which succour all who venerate this land.

            Is this too much to ask or can you find

            Designs which will entrance a working mind?

Brian Hick August 2012

©copyright Sally Hick 1.7.24

 957

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

 686  The Roman Bath -  a sonnet

Julius Caesar came here for the iron

Ignoring Bannatyne's imperial worth

But Caratacus, ever one to try out

New-fangled things, build us this splendid bath

In AD 51, as you'll have noted

When reading Mr Brisco's little guide

To Summerfields' palatial house and garden

Before you wandered down to sit beside

Our Roman Spring, with its lion heads (now missing;

Stolen by some Vandals in the night)

But if you close your eyes for just a moment

I'm sure that you can conjure up the sight

            Of ladies, lying languid, in the sun

           While young men oil themselves before they run.

Brian Hick 9.3.10

© copyright Sally Hick March 2022

 Plain hard work and Time

It started with The Eagle of the Ninth

On Children's Hour, a million years ago,©

When, sat before the fire, I seemed to grow

Into the Roman virtues that by stealth

Drip fed into me over the years

Until I was convinced the only way

To achieve a goal was simply to gainsay

The luck or privilege which my peers

Seemed to attract in shoals, and turn myself

To solitary effort, never praised,

Which slowly, etched by nightly study, raised

My school exams to doctorate, and a wealth

   Of quiet satisfaction, never prized

   Except within the sparkle of your eyes.

Brian Hick

©copyright 2021 S Hick