Something A Bit Spooky For Halloween
Oct. 31st, 2007 02:35 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
poliphilo THE BLACKSMITH'S DAUGHTER
How strange it is
That the blacksmith's daughter
Should marry the master
Of
He shut her up
In a windowless room
But she picked the locks
And ran off with her lover.
Day after day
He climbed the tower
To train a glass
On her cottage gable.
Seven years passed
Then out he rode
To find the twins
At their mother's door.
He let them pat
The grey mare's neck.
He let them climb
To the saddlebow.
He has cut their throats
By the Toadstone rock.
I have served you, Janet,
As you served me.
What are those voices in the air?
Only the swallows building.
What are those voices in the earth?
Only the river running.
She wrapped herself
In her lover's coat.
She walked out barefoot
In the dew.
She followed the river
To its source
And there two swallows
Flew from a stone.
Mother, we cannot
Sleep at night;
Our narrow bones
Are so full of fever.
Our killer walks in Tunbridge Wells
Among the gentlemen
Of leisure.
She took a dagger
Of Spanish steel.
She painted her face
Like a Pump Room beauty.
He stooped to chuck her
Under the chin
And she cut him open
From crotch to neckbone.
Rest, rest, my children
Under your stone
Where swallows flit
Of a summer's morning.
I will lie
Where two roads cross
With the wheels going over
My head forever.
no subject
Date: 2007-10-31 06:02 pm (UTC)I think that's an entirely valid approach!
no subject
Date: 2007-10-31 06:42 pm (UTC)