The Devil's Gate Poem by David Lewis Paget

I didn’t see anything strange that day
When I first drove into the town,
If anything it was normal, though
I was breaking virgin ground.
I’d never been into this countryside
Before, with its mounds and mines,
A patchwork town with its mullock heaps
And its sad, neglected grime.

But the people there, they would stand and stare
As I drove my motor through,
They’d stop and stand on the corners there
With nothing better to do.
The mines had closed when the ore ran out
Though most of the miners stayed,
They didn’t seem glad to see me drive
Or wave on their Grand Parade.

But I thought I’d stay in their tiny town
I was bushed, too tired to drive,
So parked the car by their only pub
And I ventured deep inside.
A man came out with a surly look
And he said, ‘You’re passing through?
I hope you’re not a believer, son,
Or this town will do for you! ’

I shook my head at the things he said,
I only wanted to sleep,
His questions rattled around my head,
But then seemed far too deep.
I paid for a room and locked the door
Then went to sleep for a spell,
But then discovered a woman there
By the name of Jezebel.

‘Please help to smuggle me out of here, ’
She said, ‘in the back of your car.’
She whispered this with her ruby lips
Too close to my own, by far.
‘Why don’t you just get up and leave,
And walk right out of the town? ’
‘Nobody gets to leave this place,
If you try, he’ll cut you down.’

I said that she wasn’t making sense,
She was just confusing my head,
How could I concentrate, when she
Was sprawling over my bed?
‘They thought they’d taken his power away
When they tied him up in chain,
But he only waits at his evil gate
For his thousand years of pain.’

‘This town is under an evil spell
Since the miners found the rift,
If I said that my name was Jezebel
Then I think you’d get my drift.
He needs someone who believes in him
With a kind and gentle heart,
And that will help him to break his chains
Then he’ll tear this town apart.’

I asked her where I could see the man
And she said she’d take me there,
But only if I could promise her
Not to believe, or care.
‘He’ll use his wiles, and his gracious smiles
To get at the heart that’s true,
You have to reject, be circumspect,
Or he’ll take the soul from you.’

That night I followed her down a mine
That was cold, and dark and damp,
The only light we could use that night
Was a feeble miners lamp,
But then we came to a giant rift
In that ground, of ash and slate,
And there was a dark and evil glint
From a wrought iron double gate.

A man was chained to that evil gate
On the other side of sin,
Unless we opened that Devil’s Gate
There was no way he’d get in.
I stood surprised, for I saw his eyes
That were wise, before his fall,
‘Have you brought me a true believer, Jez? ’
For a moment, he stood tall.

‘I brought you a non-believer, who
Will help me away from you,
I’ve wasted time on your promises,
For nothing you said was true.’
‘Alas for me, will I never be
Set free to challenge The One? ’
‘No-one believes in the Devil now
So your power is all undone! ’

There’s a town that’s tame, it has a name
But I’ll not be telling you,
I don’t want to see a believer there
To give the Devil his due.
For the fires that we all feared have gone
Since we learned we’re not to hate,
It would only take one bended knee
To open the Devil’s Gate.

26 April 2015