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The Church of Wenslow Haze

The sea that batters the eastern coast
Has often subdued the land,
Five hundred years have seen the retreat
Of a mile of cliffs and sand,
When tides are low in the summertime
From beneath the distant swell,
The villagers lying abed at night
Hear the tolling of a bell.

The bell resounds up the village street
And rattles the cobblestones,
As the villagers close the shutters tight
And lock the doors of their homes,
They hear the thump of a wooden stump
As it echoes along the street,
The wooden leg of the mate, John Clegg
From Drake's Armada Fleet!

The thump is steady and purposeful
As it heads towards the sea,
Where the bell still rings for matins
As in 1563,
When priests were burned for popery
In the England of those days,
They used the little singing cakes
In the Church of Wenslow Haze!

John Clegg was a surly protestant
In the service of the Queen,
So the use of the cakes for massing bread -
He thought it was quite obscene!
The vicar had leant to the Roman Church,
The Reverend Walter Raise,
And Clegg had stood and harangued him there
In the Church of Wenslow Haze.

‘You'll bring your Popish habits here
At the risk of mortal pain,
I fought for the Queen Elizabeth
To see off the King of Spain,
If you don't revert to the massing bread
And the Book of Common Prayer,
I'll see to the piling of faggots
When they burn you in the square! '

But Walter Raise would never be stayed
By the threats of an ignorant tar,
He said: ‘I only answer to God
For the what and the where we are!
The form is not as important as

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