They tied Saint Piran to a great millstone
And flung that good man in the Irish Sea.
But the stone floated, and he stood alone
Upon the Cornwall shore in victory.
The church he built was buried in the sand.
Twelve hundred years it lay there quite unknown.
And then a great storm fell upon the land
And washed the centuries from its grey stone.
Then the lost people of the modern age
Battered the stone saints’ faces that they found,
And so the keepers saved it from their rage
And buried it again in the clean sand.
I stand now on that dune, the church below,
And wonder if the saint will rise once more,
His spring, once buried, start again to flow
Where his stone floated to the Cornish shore.
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