Market Cross

This is a place of words:
Words which accompanied the Celtic dead to rest,
Words that told how King Eadred of the English
Had burned Ripon to insult this kingdom,
Words of royal charters and plain dealing.

When maps were made by markets
The cross was made.
Four solid steps surmounted by a shaft, 
And, until Cromwell’s days, by a cross.

Here was the royal signature of control.
When William the Bastard’s soldiers
Laid Masham waste
Here is where someone told the survivors:
This is the way things are.

Now the monastic flocks are memories
And the court which pilloried criminals here
Is just a house in College Lane,
And Mr. Tenpercent-Vicar
No longer collects his tithes on this spot,
It is still the centre of our little universe,
The hub of the holy fair.