The Carrier or English Carrier is a breed of fancy pigeon developed over many years of selective breeding. Carriers, along with other varieties of domesticated pigeons, are all descendants of the rock pigeon (Columba livia). They have a long slender body, with a long neck in proportion to the rest of the body, and distinctive features including a rounded hard wattle.
The breed was developed in England from a combination of non–European breeds, including the Persian and Baghdad carriers, and the powter. The largest of the flying pigeon breeds, the Old English Carrier was originally used for sending messages.
By the mid 19th century, the points in the standard of the English Carrier were deemed to have been achieved, and the breed was praised for its "perfectness to which all the points most admired have been brought". At this point the colors of the breed were limited to black, white and dun (a brownish grey color). Today, the English Carrier is strictly a show pigeon, and is not the modern homing pigeon. This modern homing pigeon is a breed known as a Racing Homer, a breed which was bred from eight different pigeon breeds including the English Carrier.
Seven brides serve me seven sins
Seven seas writhe for me
From Orient gates to R'lyeh
Abydos to Thessaly
And Sirens sing from stern
But now I cease to play
For I yearn to return
To woodland ferns
Where Herne and his wild huntress lay
Now the tidal are turning
Spurning the darkness
The great purgations of distinguished tours
Are but stills in time
To the thrill that I'm
Once more
Heading to the bedding
Of her English shores
The wind bickered in Satanic mill sails
Eyes flickered in deep thickets of trees
And mists clung tight in panic to vales
When Brigantia spoke her soul to me
From Imbolg to Bealtaine
Lughnasadh to Samhain feasts
I heard her lament as season's blent
Together a chimerical beast
Now the tidal are turning
Churning in darkness
The celebrations of extinguished wars
Are but stills in time
To the chill that climbs
Once more
Dreading the red weddings
On her English shores
Gone are the rustic summers of my youth
Cruel winter cut their sacred throats
With polished scythes that reap worldwide
Pitch black skies and forest smoke
And the hosts that I saw there
Drones of carrion law
Drove the ghosts of my forbears
To rove and rally once more
One of her sons from the vast far-flung
Come home to rebuild
The rampant line of the Leonine
Risen over pestilent fields
Now the tidal are turning
Burning in darkness
The salvation of her hungry sword
Shalt spill like wine
From the hills to chines
That pour
Spreading her beheadings
On these English shores
For the hosts that I saw there
Drones of carrion law
Drove the ghosts of my forbears
To rove and rally once more
This is a waking for England
From it's reticent doze
This is a waking for England