By
Jake Frost
Comes the ghost at the hour
Stars shine and comets shower
That all men, by Adam cursed,
Know the King to follow first
Armor gleaming in the night
With an otherworldly light
On a spectral mission sent
Riding through the hills of Kent
The Lone Knight upon his steed
Comes on Becket’s day to plead
To the church at Kemsing town
Where Saint Edith’s Well is found
For here he stopped upon his way
Riding forth a saint to slay
From a king to win reward
By the swinging of his sword
For said the king at his feast,
“Who will rid me of this priest?”
“This low-born cleric who defies,”
“The lord beneath the English skies.”
But as tyrants often do
The king said words that were untrue
For never the cleric had denied
His sovereignty, as the king decried
What the cleric said, plainly true,
Was: “There is a higher power still than you,”
“Who on Ascension Day did rise,”
“To reign as King of kings above the skies.”
“The King of kings, and bishops, too,”
“To Whom accounting one day is due,”
“For how we spent this life He gave,”
“When we beg our souls to save.”
“For when Michael calls the roll,”
“God alone will judge the soul,”
“So though you may wield the sword,”
“My house and I serve first The Lord.”
“God, Who has created all,”
“Further sees than men who fall,”
“Giving law to set us free,”
“Guiding past what we can see.”
“There are things no king may do,”
“And every king is subject to,”
“The King of kings above the skies,”
“And all His law must recognize.”
“As was seen in Jacob’s dream,”
“To ascend to Heaven’s gleam,”
“Men must climb where angels trod,”
“On the ladder which is God.”
“So as once Saint Peter said,”
“Though by the lash our Savior bled,”
“God’s commands we must obey,”
“Above the will of men of clay.”
For this the king would have his head
For this his knights swiftly sped
The Lone Knight and fellows three
By four ways to Canterbury
On the feast of David, who
With a stone the giant slew,
The shepherd God made His king
Who wrote the psalms still we sing
Fast rode the knights bearing lies,
Like fire on the wind that flies,
All things seeking to consume
Unto ash and utter doom
“Thomas,” they said, “seeks to take,”
“From the king his crown, and make,”
“Himself to rule all the land,”
“So we bear the dread command!”
Then in castle, keep, and hall,
Dark as night was heard their call:
“All the swords in England be,”
“Raised in war on Canterbury!”
The Lone Knight so onward rode,
Heedless of the seeds he sowed,
Raising not his eyes to see,
Dawn beyond mortality
When to Kemsing he was led,
Ere the fateful night was sped,
While before him still there lay,
Chance to choose another way
There he stopped, his steed to rest,
Where Saint Edith’s name is blessed
Where at Edith’s holy well
From the blind their darkness fell
For when there washed by water
Of the well of Edgar’s daughter
Once again the blind could see
By the grace of the Trinity
Granted through a princess born,
Who could herself the crown have worn,
Of the realm that Alfred won,
At the Battle of Ethandun
For at the death of the king
To Edith came the signet ring
Brought by nobles of the land
To place the scepter in her hand
But the throne Edith declined
For she alone for one thing pined:
Ever to live in accord
With what was willed by The Lord
The lamp hung upon the tree
Bright, so all the world could see,
Its burning light, far and wide,
Shining on the countryside
“Like The Handmaid first I seek,”
She said when she began to speak,
“To do what is our Savior’s will,”
“And here His work is for me still.”
“As the rain and falling snow,”
“Where bids The Lord, there I go,”
“Here I serve the Will Divine,”
“Here the better part is mine.”
So said Edith, so away
Rode the nobles on that day
Different kingdoms up to build
As for each The Lord had willed
She who could have ruled the land
Chose instead to turn her hand
To the service of the poor,
And sailors bring safe to shore
Her sleeve, with a wave, dispelling
Crashing waves and winds quelling,
Binder of the secret schemers,
Counsellor to kings and dreamers
Freer of men held in chains,
Healer of those wracked with pains,
Refuge of all fleeing wrath,
Guider back onto the path
Friend of creatures wild and free,
Dwellers of the field and tree,
Quencher of the burning flame,
By her saving prayers of fame
So as sunlight through a window flows,
So with its light the window glows,
So was Edith set agleam,
By graces God through her would beam
That by wonders through her hand
Men might come to understand,
Like the blowing Burghmote Horn,
The call of men to freedom born
Did the knight there draw to drink?
Or at her well pause to think?
Or wonder why such a sign,
At that hour he should find?
If he did, he cast aside
Her memory on to ride
On David’s day, who did stay
His hand, forbearing Saul to slay
For Saul was still God’s anointed
Even when the spear was pointed
At Saul asleep upon the ground
Where his spear and jug were found
When for wickedness was cast
Saul from sovereignty at last
For The Lord raises whom He will,
And kings must answer to Him still
For the might of man, in a blow
Of a stone, The Lord lays low,
A humble shepherd child slings
To break the gleaming might of kings
On went the knight armed for war
To batter down a bishop’s door
The door of a bishop and a church
Where he went in bloody search
For it was Thomas Becket, he,
Anointed Bishop of Canterbury,
Who was the cleric that the king
A violent death sought to bring
The saint fed with leaping fish,
When from his lips fell the wish,
For what food God would provide
Then leapt the fish from the tide
Who in dreams the augers told
Of quilts all England could not hold
Colored deepest crimson red
On the baby’s cradle-bed
And stars that fell from the skies
For the Bishop in disguise,
Twelve to make a martyr’s crown,
For when the swords would strike him down
For Cross and crozier the king would rule,
As seeks every tyrant fool
Like Nebuchadnezzar, the braying ass,
Eating thistle and tearing grass,
Whose golden idol and furnace blast,
Were brought to naught at the last
For the might of man cannot compare
With a song of God upon the air
Too, England’s king chewing straw,
Whose ears heard not, nor eyes saw,
Driven onward by the goad
Of Pride, down the smoother road
For, as once at Babel’s tower,
Ever men by their power,
Seek to grasp, in hubris, things
Only for the King of kings
So from Eden still the lie,
Whispered so that men would die,
Borne upon the poisoned breath
Of the serpent, brought men death
Into Canterbury Cathedral burst,
With naked steel drawn in thirst,
For the blood of holy men,
Evil worked through lies again
The four knights came at the head
Of men-at-arms that they led
From the castles of the king,
Doors with the axe splintering
While monks sang at the altar
David’s hymns from the psalter,
Came the knights that blood be spilled,
And there was Thomas Becket killed
Blood and brains upon the stones
Spattered from his shattered bones,
And skull, opened by the blade,
And the wounds their swords had made
At the altar where the day
He was ordained he first did say
The holy words of mystery
That the Eucharist would be
The heavens burst in power
In judgement on that hour
As on Canterbury there broke
Storm upon the murderous stroke
And then away rode the knights
Flushed with visions of delights
That their wicked deed would bring
In recompense from their king
But ever the deceiver,
The liar and bereaver,
On his promises reneges,
As graves and more graves he digs
So learned Adam hiding, when
He was less than he had been,
And became a slinking thing,
In Eden once he ruled as king
For sin degrades and breaks us,
And from God’s glory takes us,
And our destiny betrays,
As through sin the serpent slays
The knights, too, as Adam learned,
Found the fate their sin had earned,
In the dragon’s clutches caught,
Was not the glory they had sought
No riches, rank, or station,
Was theirs in compensation,
For the wickedness they’d done
Pain and woe were all they’d won
Like leaves scattered on the blast
From their nation they were cast
Into foreign lands to die
Far away from England’s sky
And long the years of regret
Bound them and still bind them yet
Like glowing coal, still it burns
And so The Lone Knight returns
To the church at Kemsing town,
Entering in and kneeling down,
With bowed head he comes to pray
Every year on Becket’s day
While earthly kings come and go,
Like the changing winds that blow,
In witness down through the years
In ghostly form he appears
As a sign the knight is shown
In his prayer that it be known
Who is Ruler of all things,
Who alone is King of kings
Comes the ghost at the hour
Stars shine and comets shower
That all men, by Adam cursed,
Know the King to follow first
jakefrost469-dxcmr 