The Laughing

I am wont to walk

As the eldest quiet Crier

Bellman of St. Sepulchre

To the dungeon gates

Such sorrow I bear

Recalling my fallen kinsman

Who time and again

Cries out his truth

Only I remain standing to forgive his sin

As I still hear my brother's cry–

Long live the Criers!

The death bell has tolled

May the hell-mouth of brimstone

Swallow the queen's iniquity

I do brand her eternal spirit

As Bloody Mary

Hear ye! Hear ye! Hear ye!

I bear the former Crier's black cloth

Used to cover the skeps

Making known unto the bees

His great heaviness

For Bloody Mary

I proclaimed his cry could never be made Holy

Yet he continued his boasts of the queen's purity

Gladly in malice I bade him farewell

He is gone to join his beloved Mary in Hell

And I still hear my brother's cry–

Listen! Listen! Listen!

To all manner of persons,

[Spoken] This November 17, 1558

That it hath pleased Almighty God

To free this grateful people

From our late, unholy

Sovereign Lady, Queen Bloody Mary!

Before I was

The Bellman of St. Sepulchre

I was young when hate and fate

Crowned Queen Elizabeth

I was there to bear witness

As her words damned my kinsman

I Elizabeth do decree

"Crier for the hurt you cried upon Mary

Thou shalt be set upon the pillory,

To have both thy ears cut off,

In the hole perpetual at the Queen's pleasure."

Time passes for all

For the one upon the throne

And for my friend in dungeon

Perhaps freedom has come to both

I hold a dry-eyed sorrow

As Elizabeth now walks with God

Our new King James remade me

As Bellman of St. Sepulchre

And he bade me

"Bellman of St. Sepulchre,

Go now and ring the death bell

For the old one chained below"

And I said–

I would as soon go to hell

Your majesty

So he made me know hell

For on the King's own gold plate

Now rest my lifeless ears

As some things do not change

Yet, I am proud I spoke sooth

Such sorrow I bear

Recalling my fallen kinsman

Who time and again

Cries out my truth

Only I remain standing to forgive his sin

Upon the prison grates I listen

Standing proud to have given my ears

To be his choir

For the unrepentant, unremorseful

Dungeon echoes of my brother

Of the Laughing Crier

Of the Laughing Crier

© 2026 John Osinga. All rights reserved. St. Thomas, Ontario, Canada.