The end was nigh, he scanned the sky
For portents, dark and deep,
He’d sensed some troubled signs within
While tossing in his sleep.
He told his wife to pack some things,
The least that they would need,
But she said, ‘You must leave alone,
I’m staying here, God speed!’
He found he couldn’t change her mind,
No matter that he tried,
He told her of the darker times
That he had sensed, inside.
But she was quite content, she said,
‘In fact I’m quite serene,
I shall not run before the tide,
It may be but a dream!’
The Castle walls with hallowed halls
Held shadows grim and bleak,
Where muttered shades from former days
Would flit from moat to keep,
From tower, to hall, to bedchamber,
He cast his nervous eyes,
Where even in the flagstoned floors
He thought, ‘There evil lies!’
The evening skies were tinctured with
A weird orange glow,
And then the Moon rose up above,
A baneful, blood-red show,
While winds that howled like none before
Now clattered at the eaves,
And whispered down the chimney’s core,
‘God help the one that leaves!’
He wandered round the halls at night
And shook in some dread fear,
At sounds of chains, and distant pains
Deep in his inner ear.
He stood up at the battlements
And scanned the dark surround,
Where gargoyles leered, to spout their cheer
All on the hallowed ground.
‘But surely you must hear them, Maud,
They’re plain, so plain to me!’
‘I only hear the chirping bird
That flits in yonder tree.
Perhaps your mind has been disturbed,
You need to rest at night,
I’ll lock you in the Castle Keep
Until your dreams take flight.’
That night, asleep, but fitfully
He heard a horse’s hooves,
That clattered in the courtyard, echoed
With its iron shoes.
And then he heard his wife, who whispered
Like some painted *****,
‘He’s almost driven mad, I’ve locked
Him in, and barred the door.’
Then like a charm that runs its course
And sets its victim free,
He knew that she’d been feeding him
With Belladonna tea.
He waited for an hour, and then
Burst hinges on the door,
And sought his wife’s bedchamber
Where her lover felt secure.
‘I told you I’d sensed darker times,
Such darker times, for you!’
He said as he approached the bed
And ran her lover through.
He raised the sword that dripped with blood
Then stood with drooping head,
While she went pale, to no avail,
In moments, she was dead!
David Lewis Paget