The Inn of Jasper Shrine
The coast was rugged and storm-swept as
I battled it in the rain,
The cliffs reared up, then fell away
To a flat, deserted plain,
The sea beat up in a thunder on
The rocks that lined the shore,
When I saw the wreck of a wayside inn
And its open, swinging door.
It hadn't appeared on the map, I knew
As I'd studied the bleak terrain,
The thing that I'd come here looking for
Was a wreck from the Spanish Main,
It lay in fifteen fathoms there
With a load of gold moidores,
Chased inshore by a privateer
And sunk, so my uncle swore.
He'd come on some ancient manuscripts
And the log of the Brig ‘Despair',
Washed up a hundred years ago
On the coastline near Llan Fair,
It roamed the seas three hundred years
Without a crew or a sail,
The log said most of the crew were dead
Tipped out by a great white whale.
The bones of the Captain, Peverell,
Lay slumped, right over the log,
It told of the Spanish galleon
And where it went down in the fog,
It told how the whale had tipped the brig
And broken the mast in two,
While the rest of the men had died of thirst
As it drifted, with the crew.
I came to the shelter of the Inn
And could read the swinging sign,
It carried a skull and a bottle of rum
And a name, ‘The Jasper Shrine',
The door hung loose on its hinges and
Gave out a creak and a moan,
The wind howled in at the windows
As the timbers swayed and groaned.
The storm continued to rage outside
At least I was warm and dry,
I lay that night on the upper floor
And stared straight up at the sky,
The thatch had fallen in holes and rain
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poem by David Lewis Paget
Added by Poetry Lover
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