Legends and Memories of St John's Chapel -
Addressed to R. A. Riddick
by Major John W. Moore 

Part XXVI  - published in the Windsor Ledger Jan.  18, 1900

 Sad, it is, to think of wrath 
Coming on the best of friends,
Quarrels, that are so unseemly
Often finding never ends,
Riving wide apart, the loving,
Filling fond hearts full of woe;
So it was, When Captain Cotton
Offended his old crony so,
It was a sad, sad tale, to tell
With little hope of ending well.

The Captain though a churchman,
Once officer of the King,
Had been ever, well convinced
That the future yet would bring,
Larger lease of privileges
To the people, long oppressed
By a thousand petty evils,
Such as the religious tests;
In fact he was right loyal then,
To all that this day makes free men.

There is so sadder thing I ween, 
Than two right noblemen
Who as brothers, long had been
Bound in friendships golden claim,
To thus part, in lasting passion,
And like sundered cliffs to frown
On each other, sad and hopeless,
both in torture from the wounds:
For true love never dies its death
Without a piteous aftermath.

Captain Cotton never could
Quite forgive the English Crown,
For the murder of his cousin,
By injustice, so profound
That loyal, as he had e'er been
Yet he swore, that Alice Lyle
Was as harmless, meek and gentle,
As the sweetest newborn child;
And yet this saintly bride of heaven
All England could not get forgiven.

She had given shelter to
Two gentle men, old and spent,
Flying from the brutal Soldiers,
And from death then imminent;
For they both had fought with Monmouth
And were flying from Ledgemoor,
In a plight so pitiful
She couldn't drive them from her door,
Her mercy thus, her only sin
And with no futher end therein.

In vain England's greatest. best
Besought pardon of the King,
That he would not take her life
For so innocent a thing;
Wholly without aim or purpose
Save to answer mercy's call,
But the tyrant failed to hear them,
And let Jeffreys sentence fall,
On her whose portrait now is seen
In the Capitol, by Peer and Queen.

Cotton, said the royal tyrant
Well deserved his father's fate,
And King George, if her possested
Should come unto like estate,
The Kings were only mortal men,
And had never right or power
Save that given by the people,
Not of God, this regal dower,
For he was King and by consent
And only so to that extent.

Major Brown, sad to tell, 
Could not abide talk, like this,
He swore t'was all Whigish cant,
And might never he know bliss,
If such things were not treason vile:
More than that, the Lady Lyle
Suffered as every rebel should,
Here, and on Great Britain's isle:
And that he had no further use
For man who would the crown abuse.

Captain Cotton grew so hot
As the crippled grenadier
"Yes" he cried, we two can part
Aye by all that's good and dear
"I''ll never speak to you again!"
With such expletives that I
Can not very well report in 
Word that would provoke a sigh
That so wise in other things,
Should lose themselves in bickerings.

It is difficult to say
Which of my good forbears, then
Made the welkin louder sing,
With the wrath that they were in,
And it invariably happened
That young Godwin Cotton, come
And these men who both were fathers,
In the height of passion flame
Alas for mediation then
It only added to the din.

Godwin pleaded earnestly
With the men he loved so well
To unsay their bitter words
And 'tis piteous all to tell
Major Brown took fresh offence
At a word unwary used
And asserted that poor Godwin
Had himself also abused
That he also might now well know
They ne'er again as friendly would go.

Sarah happened to be there
And the two young people thus 
Had a chance to say farewell
Ere the Major still in fuss
Drove off from old Mulberry Grove
Swearing ne'er to come again
And nearer home he drew
Deeper grew fair Sarah's pain
As weeping twain of long ago
How opt we love such useless woe..

The Major was full wretched
That same evening after tea
As he thought about the matter
In his lonely misery
Then he called for winsome Sarah
And requested that she would sing
Something to ease his heart ache
With the hope that it would bring 
Perhaps surcease to sorrow deep
He felt that night would banish sleep.

She went unto her spinet
And vainly tried to sing
That song which of all others
Would the surest sorrow bring
For the maiden half heart broken
In her anguish deep and sore
In sweet low voice began for him
Dear old Lochnagar no Moor
Like some lost soul despairing wail
It the thrilled the old man stern and pale.

The old song ever plaintive
Never unto him before
Brought such floods of recollection
Of his youth and days of yore
And of those when he a stranger
Found this same Captain Cotton
Was so lavish in assistance
A thousand things forgotten
Came back to tell him of them all
As nights links shadows round him fall.

Then the news from Lexington
Came by going round the world
War and blood shed fired the land
Freedom banners were unfurled
And the great debate no longer
Rested on the statesman's tact
The issues were not now of law
But the dark and doubtful fact
Whither colonists should yet be free
Or lose both life and liberty.

Major Brown was dumbfounded
But he still was as of yore
Under his own vine and figtree
He but listened to the roar
Of the hosts as tide of battle
Rolled across the struggling states
Watching e'er in breathless ardor
For the signs of coming fates
When America should ransomed be
Or victim of long tyranny.

For Albion in her ruling
Has scant mercy e'er for those
Of her tributaries daring
Her decretal to oppose
We doubtless should have gotten 
Just such mercy at her hands
As has made her rule in Ireland
A stench in Christian body
They would have hanged George Washington
About the height that Haman won.