Back in the days of the old gas lamps
When the streets were lit, but dim,
A young lamplighter would tour the streets
And the houses, looking in,
The flickering flame of each lamp would light
The windows in the dark,
He’d see what he wasn’t meant to see
In the light of each flickering spark.
He saw what he thought was an angel
Through a window in Lygon Street,
Sitting in front of a mirror,
Looking down, and washing her feet.
Her hair trailed over her shoulders like
Some golden ears of corn,
Then she looked up, and her bright blue eyes
Made him feel he was new-born.
Her lips were set in a steady pout
And were red and ripe to kiss,
Her brows were raised as she looked his way
And his heart felt instant bliss,
While she looked through her window pane
At the face of an angel boy,
Who, breathing mist on her window glass
Had scribbled his name there, ‘Roy’.
Their eyes had locked with each other when
He framed his lips in a kiss,
And she stood up and approached him,
Then she put her lips to his,
They stayed so long that the glass had warmed
But the mist spread round about,
Till neither could see the other it
Had blotted each vision out.
Then every night he had lingered there
With his taper to her lamp,
And shivered out on the footpath for
The nights were getting damp,
He hoped that she would be sitting where
She had sat, before the kiss,
But nothing had moved within that room
From that day until this.
He didn’t know but she’d had to go
To stay on her uncle’s farm,
To breathe the purer air out there
Than the fog that did her harm,
She still spat blood in her handkerchief
But she thought about the boy,
Who’d kissed her once through a window pane
And the thought still brought her joy.
David Lewis Paget