MOTHER SHIPTON

A POEM WRITTEN IN THE YEAR 13-- BY MOTHER SHIPTON

A carriage without a horse shall go,
Disaster fill the earth with woe;
In London Primrose Hill shall be;
Its centre hold a bishops See.
Around the world mens thoughts shall fly
Quick as the twinkling of an eye,
And water shall great wonders do-
How strange, and yet it shall come true;
Thro� tow�ring hills proud man shall ride
No horse or ass by his side.
Beneath the water men shall walk;
Shall ride, shall sleep, shall even talk;
And in the air men shall be seen,
In white, in black, as well as green.
A great man then shall come and go,
For prophecy declares it so.
In water iron then shall float
As easy as a wooden boat;
Gold shall be found in stream or stone,
In the land that is as yet unknown.
Water and fire shall wonders do,-
And England shall admit a Jew,-
The Jew that once was held in scorn
Shall of a Christian then be born.
A home of glass shall come to pass
In England- but alas, alas!
A war shall follow with the work,
Where dwells the pagan and the turk.
The states will lock in fiercest strife,
And seek to take each others life,
When north shall thus devide the south;
The eagle build in lions mouth;
Then tax and blood and cruel war
Shall come to every humble door.
Three times shall lovely, sunny France,
Be led to play a bloody dance,
Three tyrant rulers shall she see;
Before the people shall be free,
Each sprang from different Dynasty.-
Then, when the fiercest fight is done,-
England and France shall be one.
The British olive then shall twine
In Marriage with the German vine.
Men walk beneath and over streams;
Fulfilled shall be our strongest dreams.
All Englands sons shall plow the land,
Shall oft be seen with book in hand.
The poor shall now most wisdom know,-
And water, wind, where corn doth grow;
Great houses stand with far flung vale,
All covered o�er with snow and hail.
And now a word in uncouth rhyme
Of what shall be in future time:
Fore in these wondrous far off days,
The women shall adopt a craze
To dress like men and trousers wear,
And cut off their locks of hair.
They�ll ride astride with brazen brow
As witches do on broomsticks now.
Then love shall die and marriage cease,
And nations wane as babes decrease.
And wives shall fondle cats and dogs
And men live much the same as hogs.
In nineteen hundred and thirty-six,
Build houses light with straw and sticks,
For then shall mighty wars be planned,
And fire and sword shall sweep the land.
But those who live the century through
In fear and trembling this shall do,
Flee to the mountains and the dens,
To bog and forest and wild fens-
For storms shall rage and oceans roar
When Gabriel stands on sea and shore;
And as he blows his wondrous horn,
Old worlds shall die and new be born.