For Roger Bruton

The Call of the Water

Winifred Holtby

There is a legend attached to a carved head of stone set in a bank near East Witton, a village in the North Riding of Yorkshire. From the mouth and nose of this head flows a stream of pure water, which drips into a small stone basin below.

The legend is that whoever drinks of the water will feel its charm calling him till he dies, and will go back there to be buried.

The shadows dance and linger near my humble cottage bed;
Out on the moor a deathlike silence creeps;
A murmuring seems to call me where I would but cannot go,
While outside the world of nature gently sleeps.
But a wistful longing calls me - I must go, I cannot stay,
Where in childhood's days I often used to roam;
For the "calling of the water" is bewitching me today
And a yearning in my heart cries to be home.
By a bank steep, high and rugged is an ugly carven head,
Where a pure and crystal stream of water flows;
And whoever drinks the water will remember till he's dead
That it calls him back to Witton till he goes.
'Tis a mystic call and gentle, yet the soul that hears it springs
In obedience unto that which whispers low.
Hark! I hear a gentle murmur; in my heart for aye it rings
The water's calling, and I needs must go.

-oOo-

a silent old leaf
now nudged around the pond
gloriously waits
to make its end.
the eye looks down
and finds the distant land
serves yet in waiting
that universal wind.

Roger Bruton.
1937-2000