He sat on top of the headland in
The driving, pouring rain,
The way that the clouds were gathering,
He’d never be dry again,
He thought of the girl at Windy Tor
Who had screamed at his only sin,
‘You’d better beware of that witch’s stare
For the tide is coming in!’

And down in the river valley, there
Was a cottage, made of stones,
Where a temptress with a gleam in her eye
Was juggling spells and bones,
She called the lightning out of the sky
With a book full of ancient tricks,
And blasted the heath round Windy Tor
While lighting her candlesticks.

But up at the Tor, Myfanwy raged
And bubbled and boiled the sea,
She churned it into a raging storm
That her lover could plainly see,
He thought of warning the temptress who
Had entered his eyes and ears,
But heard instead his Myfanwy say,
‘It only will end in tears.’

He couldn’t go down to the valley, and
He couldn’t go up to the Tor,
He could feel his life unravelling
From the bliss that he’d felt before,
A wind soughed up from the valley floor
Full of tempting overtones,
But from the Tor there was something more
An ache, and a Wake of moans.

The sun went down and he turned to go,
He made his way in the dark,
The spell that he was enchanted with
Had finally made its mark,
He turned his back on the love he’d lost,
Went down to the valley floor,
But all he could hear when he got quite near
Was the sea that beat on the shore.

The sea rose up and it poured right in
As it flooded over the plain,
The tide had entered the valley, it
Would never be dry again,
And under the flood of Myfanwy’s mood
Was the cottage, made of stones,
While all that was left of the temptress was
A gaggle of spells and bones.

Myfanwy’s still up at Windy Tor
And nurses a constant ache,
While his regret hasn’t left him yet
For his foolish, one mistake,
He’d sought a spell that she’d love him well
Then fell to a mortal sin,
And always he heard Myfanwy’s words,
‘The tide is coming in!’

David Lewis Paget