The Black Stone Tower Poem by David Lewis Paget

I’d walked back home by the clifftop path,
I’d only been gone an hour,
Rounding the point, it came into view
The sight of our Black Stone Tower.
Its ancient mystery suited me then
We’d picked it up for a song,
Nobody else had wanted it,
At the price, we couldn’t go wrong.

They said that a king had built it there
Far back in the mists of time,
And soldiers climbed by the old stone stair,
But now, thank god, it was mine.
A roof to shelter my Evelyn,
Though we supped by candlelight,
And drew our water deep from a well,
Made love when the stars were bright.

But now a breeze blew up from the cliff,
Was chill, and ruffled my hair,
And something about the Black Stone Tower
Was strange, a sense of despair.
For weeds had grown where the weeds were not
When I’d left, an hour before,
And someone had painted a bright red cross
On the Baltic Pine of the door.

It was only when I had got close up
That I saw that the red was blood,
And the door was half off its hinges, where
It was splintering, as I stood,
Then shapes began to appear to me,
Of soldiers, battering in
The Baltic Pine of this ancient door
To slay the soldiers within.

There wasn’t a single sound to hear,
There should have been clash and roar,
A mighty battle was raging in
The Black Stone Tower of war.
I called and I called for Evelyn
But there wasn’t a single trace
Of the love that I’d left alone in there,
That now, most terrible place.

I ran outside to the edge of the cliff
And stared down into the bay,
And there was the foulest, evil ship
Sails set, for sailing away.
And Evelyn strode down on the beach
While a soldier pulled at her hair,
Dragging her into a longboat as
She fought and struggled down there.

But this was a different Evelyn
To the one that I’d left at home,
The girl on the beach was dressed in peach,
My Evelyn dressed in bone,
And not in a full length courtly dress
Like you see from the days of yore,
As her ghostly shadow stepped in the boat
And sailed away from the shore.

I turned again to the Black Stone Tower
And the door was back in its frame,
There wasn’t a sign of the bloody cross
That had been there, just as I came.
And Evelyn staggered from out the door
As I cried out, ‘Where have you been? ’
And she said sleepily, ‘Don’t be cross,
I’ve had an incredible dream! ’

29 May 2015