The Cave Poem by heather sweeting

The Cave



In a far off land many moons ago
Was a forest where no man dared to go.
With trees as thick as a witch’s broom
It was darker than midnight on the moon!
And deep inside that ghostly wood
Was a cave as black as a witch’s hood,
So deep and wide that folk were told
It could hold an army, thousand fold!

'And from the cave at dead of night
Mysterious creatures rose in flight.
The groans and moans of those departed
Would petrify the feeble hearted,
Sending them scurrying urgently home
Afraid to be found in the wood alone.
For those who lingered had been slain,
Never to be seen alive again'...

Well, that was the story as the legend stood,
Of the fearsome happenings in the wood.
But if some were brave and ventured in
They might find Old Murphy deep within,
Smoking his pipe and surveying the skies
With a wistful look in his old blue eyes.
Old Murphy had sailed from Ireland’s shore
In eighteen hundred and fifty four.

The potato famine in ‘fifty two
Had taken his wife, his children too.
The English shunned him, refusing him aid,
He could work the land but he wouldn’t be paid.
They banished him to that lonely wood
To scrape a living as best he could.
He forged his tools in a fiery blast
Cremating the memories of his past.

He lived alone in this blackened cave
And with kettles and pans he plied his trade.
He made the best of his lowly lot
But he hammered his hate into every pot.
He called down a curse on all Englishmen
And invoked the devil to punish them.
The pain etched deep in his leathery face,
He dwelt sixty years in this solitary place.

In a far off land many moons ago
Was a forest where no man dared to go.
With trees as thick as a witch’s broom
It was darker than midnight on the moon!
And deep inside that ghostly wood
Was a cave as black as a witch’s hood..
Old Murphy died there with none to grieve,
His avenging spirits have yet to leave…....

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