Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, MOTHER SHIPTON'S PROPHECIES, by CHARLES HINDLEY


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

MOTHER SHIPTON'S PROPHECIES, by                    
First Line: Over a wild and stormy sea / shall a noble sail
Last Line: "in eighteen hundred and eighty-one."
Subject(s): Prophecy & Prophets


OVER A WILD and stormy sea
Shall a noble sail,
Who to find will not fail
A new and fair countree,
From whence he shall bring:
A Herb and a root
That all men shall suit,
And please both the plowman and the king;
And let them take no more than measure,
But shall have the even pleasure,
In the belly and the brain.
Carriages without horses shall go,
And accidents fill the world with woe.
Primrose Hill in London shall be
And in its centre a Bishop's See.
Around the world thoughts shall fly
In the twinkling of an eye.
Waters shall yet more wonders do;
How strange, yet shall be true,
The world upside down shall be,
And gold found at the root of a tree.
Through hills men shall ride
And no horse or ass by their side,
Under water men shall walk,
Shall ride, shall sleep, and talk;
In the air men shall be seen,
In white, in black, and in green.
A great man shall come and go --
Three times shall lovely France
Be led to play a bloody dance;
Before her people shall be free
Three tyrant rulers shall she see;
Three times the people's hope is gone,
Three rulers in succession see,
Each springing from different dynasty.
Then shall the worser fight be done,
England and France shall be as one.
The British Olive next shall twine
In marriage with the German vine.
Men shall walk over rivers and under rivers.
Iron in the water shall float,
As easy as a wooden boat;
Gold shall be found, and found (shown?)
In a land that's not now known.
Fire and water shall more wonders do.
England shall at last admit a Jew; (foe?)
The Jew that was held in scorn
Shall of a Christian be born and born.
A house of glass shall come to pass
In England, but alas!
War will follow with the work,
In the land of Pagan and Turk,
And State and State in fierce strife,
Will seek each other's life.
But when the North shall divide the South,
An eagle shall build in the lion's mouth.
Taxes for blood and for war,
Will come to every door.
All England's sons that plough the land,
Shall be seen, book in hand;
Learning shall so ebb and flow,
The poor shall most learning know.
Waters shall flow where corn shall grow,
Corn shall grow where waters doth flow.
Houses shall appear in the vales below,
And covered by hail and snow;
The world then to an end shall come
In Eighteen Hundred and Eighty-one."





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