Whenever I ride in the countryside
On the further side of the hill,
I can see the new church steeple, rising
Over the fields and rills,
Then I venture down to the valley, on
The Little Newhampton side,
And see the wreck of the ancient church
And remember the day it died.

Its blackened stone lies wide to the sky,
Its rafters lie in the nave,
If God was passing that fateful day
He thought it too late to save,
The lightning bolt that shattered his cross
Went on to set it on fire,
The lectern, pews, of Reverend Buse
Conspired to burn on his pyre.

They found his skull, all covered in ash
But the rest of him had gone,
Had flown his soul with its blackened wings
To a feast on the Eve of John,
He was known to hold a Satanic Mass
On the night of the Witches Moon,
But the Bishop’s men were ******* his track
And would have defrocked him soon.

His congregation was always sparse,
For the good folk stayed away,
They’d heard strange rumours of what went on
With the Squire, and the Widow Hay,
They locked themselves behind cedar doors
And called on the god of wrath,
With lighted candles, inverted cross,
Laid out on the altar cloth.

The evening of the lightning strike
The leadlight flickered and flashed,
And screams rang out in the early hours
As a black cat hurried past,
For then the windows had glowed bright red
To herald a presence there,
While a deep, loud gutteral voice rang out
To foul and corrupt the air.

‘Where are my churls and underlings,
My troglodytes and my trolls?
Tonight is the night of sundering
Each evil heart from its soul!’
The Squire burst out, made a run for it
And tried to leap on his horse,
But the old black mare took him back in there,
And somebody slammed the doors.

And that was when the lightning struck,
It flashed, and shattered the cross,
The blazing roof came tumbling down
And the Widow Hay was lost.
They never found the Squire or his horse,
But I think that’s just as well,
They’re probably roasting chestnuts, down
In the seventh circle of Hell!

David Lewis Paget