Rye Invincible

 

By  C. Peerless

 

A ringed cluster of red tinged roofs

Rise gently towards the sky

Until they reach the Ancient Tower

Of the Church of St. Mary’s, Rye.

 

The Streets are cobbled and worn by feet

That have loved have worshipped and died

For the living faith that by Englishmen

Has never been sold or denied.

 

Upon this town in the days of old

Came Roman, Viking and Dane

Frenchmen too have left their mark

Of Warfare time and again.

 

But scars are there from a foe today

Deeper and harder to hide

Death and Destruction have rained from the skies

With foulest infamy dyed

 

Altar and easel, hearth and home

Ancient archway and inn

These are the things that from history’s page

Have been torn by hands deep in sin.

 

In ancient days came the galley ships

Then muskets, then cannons roar

Until today the bombs scream down

And the loveliness seems no more.

 

Fiendish engines of science launched

By men of brutish breed

Who do not know there are men who will die

For Freedom and Freedom’s Creed.

 

For the men of the Cinque Ports would not shrink

When the Frenchmen burned their Town

They stood upright as they stand today

Who loved this English Town.

 

And so today as we honour her

This town of a timeless age

Let us praise the men who would not bow down

To the fury blind with rage.

 

Still she stands with deeper scars

Than she’s ever borne in the past

But she stands secure in her well-won pride

And a name that will ever last.

 

It will live in the hearts of English births

Wherever they speak her tongue

The red roofed town with the Church on the hill

Shall in English song be sung.

 

And when the dawn of a brave new World

Shall shine with its praise and blame

The trumpets of Heaven shall sound and resound

With Rye’s “Immortal Name.”

 

From the April 1970 issue of “Rye’s Own”

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