Saint Cadoc

A flame of rushlight in the cell

On holy walls and holy well

And to the west the thundering bay

With soaking seaweed, sand and spray,

     Oh good St. Cadoc pray for me

     Here in your cell beside the sea.

Somewhere the tree, the yellowing oak,

Is waiting for the woodman’s stroke,

Waits for the chisel saw and plane

To prime it for the earth again

     And in the earth, for me inside,

     The generous oak tree will have died.

St. Cadoc blest the woods of ash

Bent landwards by the Western lash,

He loved the veinéd threshold stones

Where sun might sometime bleach his bones

     He had no cowering fear of death

     For breath of God was Cadoc’s breath.

Some cavern generates the germs

To send my body to the worms,

To-day some red hands make the shell

To blow my soul away to Hell

     To-day a pair walks newly married

     Along the path where I’ll be carried.

St. Cadoc, when the wind was high,

Saw angels in the Cornish sky

As ocean rollers curled and poured

Their loud Hosannas to the Lord,

     His little cell was not too small

     For that great Lord who made them all.

Here where St. Cadoc sheltered God

The archaeologist has trod,

Yet death is now the gentle shore

With Land upon the cliffs before

     And in his cell beside the sea

     The Celtic saint has prayed for me.