With thanks to Macaulay’s Lays of Ancient Rome for the inspiration and the verse-form.

OK, I admit it, this poem is nothing more than a shameless clone of Sir Walter Scott’s much loved Lochinvar, which begins as follows:

O young Lochinvar is come out of the west,

Fitt Second: The Abduction

Prologue, Pontefract Castle*

Day sets on Pontefract’s great keep,
And flanking walls that round it sweep.
The warriors on the turrets high,

In love and war Fortune is all
There’s nothing she can’t do;
Her spinning wheel brings changes round,
And things have changed for you!

Invocation

Harp of my Muse! Harp of the North!
Harp of Scott’s time-honoured worth!
Revive again that ancient sound!
In my more modest scale,
Sing with that poetry profound!