I hated to pass the talking tree,
It made me feel all undone,
Raveling on in its revery
Like a racquet, coming unstrung,
What made it worse was the silken voice
Not matching a stringybark’s,
If I’d been offered a simple choice
I’d rather the voice was harsh.

It tried to attract my attention there
Each time I ventured to pass,
‘What are you going to do, just stare?’
It said, ‘Well, kiss my ***!’
It always tried to embarrass me
By being uncouth, and loose,
I said, ‘You’re surely the rudest tree,
We haven’t been introduced.’

It quoted Coleridge by the ream
Whenever I wore my hat,
‘A painted ship on a painted sea,
Now what do you think of that?’
‘I don’t know where you borrowed that line
I said, I have no notion, it’s
“As idle as a painted ship
Upon a painted ocean!”’

It used to sulk when it got it wrong
To wave its trunk with a clatter,
‘Who’d believe,’ it would say to me,
‘That getting it right would matter?’
‘I think He would, old S.T.C.
Would listen, hear, and note it,
Nor be impressed that a talking tree
Would get it wrong, and quote it.’

I turned up there with a saw one day
And the talking tree had cried,
‘I say, I’m not going to cut you down,’
I said, but it knew I lied.
For ‘April is the cruellest month,’
I said, and I wasn’t kidding,
I saw through its Eliot, silence its Pound
And cut off its Little Gidding.

David Lewis Paget

I pulled at the oars with Valentine
While Derek sat at the rear,
He’d taken his turn, now I took mine
Our quarry was drawing near,
For up on the bluff, deserted now
The tower stood, gaunt and white,
We’d managed the creaking boat somehow
To get to the Keystone Light.

It hadn’t been manned for fifty years
Its age was a matter of doubt,
The Keeper’s wife, in a fit of tears,
Left the light sputtering out.
Her husband gone in a giant wave
That carried him off from the bluff,
While in the dark was the Barque ‘Enclave’
Settling down in a trough.

And on the steps of the Keystone Light
The widow clung to the rail,
The wave was tugging about her skirt
As the Barque lost its mizzen sail,
A shark, caught up in the mighty swell
Was swept right up to the steps,
And took her leg in a single bite,
Returned with it to the depths.

They found her dead by the Keystone Light
The Barque, smashed up on the shore,
But never a sign of the Keeper, Sam,
Who had guarded the Light before.
They said his ghost ruled the tower top
That it howled in a winter storm,
While she kept swinging the outer door
To try keep the tower warm.

So we climbed up on that winter’s day,
The three of us to the bluff,
We lads let Valentine lead the way
She liked all that ghostly stuff.
The door hung off from its hinges there
From flapping about in the wind,
While Derek muttered, ‘We’d best beware,
There may be ghosts,’ and he grinned.

We’d gone, expecting to stay the night
So carried our candles and gear,
The bottom floor with the open door
Was a little too breezy, I fear.
I followed Valentine up to the Light
And carried the blankets there,
The view was truly a marvellous sight
But the wind gave us all a scare.

It hummed and soughed at the outer rail,
It groaned, and whispered and growled,
They’d warned, ‘It sounds like the Keeper’s wail,’
And true, at times it had howled.
It even seemed to have called her name,
The widow, crying in pain,
‘Caroline, I’ll be coming for you,’
Was the sound of the wind’s refrain.

We slept that night, or we tried to sleep
All huddled up on the floor,
But Derek rose, and before the dawn
His body lay down on the shore.
He must have fallen over the rail
While both of us were asleep,
But now the sound of the wind in its wail
Said, ‘Catch the wave at its peak!’

We hurried on down the spiral stair,
As the dawn came up like a trick,
We couldn’t bear to be caught up there
With both of us feeling sick.
But Valentine went out on the steps
Where the widow had stood before.
A sudden gust caught the door and just
Knocked Valentine to the floor.

I saw she’d never get up again
With the wound it gave to her head,
So much blood, like Caroline,
I knew she had to be dead.
I heave away at the oars, and pray
That their sacrifices will be
Enough to bring back my Caroline
For the Lighthouse Keeper was me!

David Lewis Paget

My father told us the story of
The time of his greatest pain,
Back in the year of ninety-nine,
During Victoria’s reign,
He lived in a two-bed terrace,
With a brother and sisters two,
With gas lamps out in the cobbled street
And nothing you’d call a view.

‘The windows were of a pebble glass
That distorted all you’d see,
And when it rained and the clouds were grained
All these shades appeared to me,
The lamps would cast a flickering beam
On the movement in the street,
To paint in shadows the local scene
Of that place they called ‘The Fleet’.’

‘I thought these shadows were passing ghosts
Who had died and lost their way,
Their shadows, caught in the pouring rain
Coming back and forth all day,
I little knew that my brother too
Would be claimed before too long,
Would add his tiny, flickering soul
To the heart of that heaving throng.’

‘For down below, a river would flow
Underneath the Coach and Horse,
The mighty sewers of the Fleet
Followed that watercourse,
The entrances were underground
And the water in it foul,
But floating bodies were often found
And the sewer men would howl.’

‘And Toby, our little Toby, he
Would be sent along the street,
He’d clatter along the cobblestones
For a loaf of bread, a treat,
He’d fetch a plug of tobacco for
Our father’s pipe, of course,
Collecting it from the barman there,
Down at the Coach and Horse.’

‘He’d toddle away, in light or dark,
He’d go in the sun or rain,
Whatever my father asked him do
He saw no need to explain,
And Toby went in the drizzling rain
One day, for a quart of beer,
I watched for him through the pebble glass
But the lad quite disappeared.’

‘All I could see were the moving shapes
Of the shadows in the rain,
Of ghosts, all huddled in coats and capes
As they passed my way, again,
But never a sight of our Toby, nor
The quart of my father’s beer,
We sent out a searching party, but
He wasn’t to reappear.’

‘We got in touch with the sewer men
Who said they would search the Fleet,
And try to find him before he flowed
To the Thames on New Bridge Street,
But all they found were a dozen dogs
Along with a monster pig,
Who all had drowned before they were found
And Toby was half as big.’

‘My father stood at the open door
At the same time every day,
Come rain or shine, he couldn’t divine
Why Toby had gone away,
But I can see, as if in a fit,
A thing that should count the least,
My father’s pipe, forever unlit,
Still gracing the mantelpiece.’

David Lewis Paget

The sun sat up on the mountain top
And started to sink from view,
A shadow, spread on the valley floor
Was creeping over you,
You’d just told me that you’d had enough
In the shade of a chestnut tree,
And then I saw in your shrouded smile
That you meant you were through with me.

I didn’t know what I’d done to you,
I thought it was only love,
But then the shadow had covered you
From the mountain top above,
You pulled your hood up over your hair
And wrapped yourself in your cloak,
Said you were going to leave me there
Go off with some other folk.

Your words were cruel, and pierced my heart
I wasn’t aware I’d erred,
You acted as if we’d strayed apart,
There was someone you preferred,
We’d been together so long I thought
That no-one could take my place,
But since you’ve shown that I’m on my own
I’m afraid of losing face.

And so I lie in the Mulberry bush
And I wait to see him here,
His first embrace with the one I love
Will become his last, I fear,
I took the knife from the kitchen drawer
With a view to bring his end,
But now I see as he ventures near
That the cheating one’s my friend.

How could you take my friend from me
As you take yourself away,
It isn’t enough that I’m losing you
But my friend as well, today,
I’ll not be spilling his blood tonight
As I thought I’d surely do,
But all the anger and hurt I feel
Has turned the knife on you.

David Lewis Paget

He wandered along old Codshill Street,
Quite late on that Christmas Eve,
And scanned the used haberdashery
Society ladies would leave,
The hats they’d worn, but only the once,
The boots with barely a scuff,
The poplin prints they hadn’t worn since,
A single dance was enough.

He stood outside in his working boots
The ones he wore at the mill,
He hadn’t had time to change himself
He should have been working still.
But in his pocket he clutched the pound
He’d saved for many a day,
He’d squirrelled each shilling away for months
Out of his meagre pay.

And all he could see was Mirabelle,
Who lodged at his heart and eye,
She worked upstairs in the counting room
Above where the shuttles fly,
And he would glimpse her once in a while
Pottering to and fro,
Dressed in a worn and paltry frock
Where the stitching was letting go.

He’d wait outside, and follow her home
To see she was safe and sound,
The rogues that he’d meet in Codshill Street
Would keep their eyes on the ground.
While she was aware of his loving gaze
And sometimes gave him a smile,
Others were bold in their loving ways
And pressed their court for a while.

And so it was on this Christmas Eve
That a Squire had stood at her door,
With a string of pearls you wouldn’t believe
He’d bought in a jeweller’s store,
And she was flushed as she let him in,
So pleased to have such a gift,
For she was only a working girl
And his interest gave her a lift.

But there in the haberdashery
In a window, stood at the side,
Was standing a model, dressed entire
In a gown so fine, he’d cried.
He thought he could see his Mirabelle
In place of the mannequin,
In the gown of grey crushed velvet, so
In a moment then, went in.

‘You know that the gown is second-hand,’
The girl explained to his stare,
‘Here are a couple of tiny stains,
And there is a little tear.
But this, that once cost a hundred pounds
Is a bargain now for a cause,
If you can give me a single pound
This lovely gown can be yours.’

She placed the gown in a long flat box,
And tied a ribbon around,
Then he flew out to his Mirabelle
In hopes she still could be found.
He saw the pearls were around her neck
When she had opened the door,
But once she pulled out the gown, she checked,
And dropped the pearls on the floor.

Her kiss was sweet on that Christmas Eve,
Though he had showed her the stains,
The tears she shed on that gorgeous thread
He said, were like summer rains,
She had no time for the wealthy Squire,
She’d waited for him all along,
Her greatest gift was a second-hand gown
With the love that the gown came from.

David Lewis Paget

I’d always thought that books were the same,
There wasn’t a lot to choose,
They each seep slowly into your brain
With knowledge you can’t refuse,
But then a book I found on a shelf
All ***** and dark and dank,
I’d read so far, then turning the page
I’d find every page was blank.

The print will stay till I drop my eyes
And the book slips from my grasp,
Then every page that’s ahead is blank
As the book escapes my clasp.
The villain smirks as I lose the plot
And he changes what’s to be,
He struggles up from the printed page
In an effort to be free.

I read the book on a cliff top verge
Looking down along the coast,
The day was calm like a soothing balm
And I felt as warm as toast,
My eyelids, heavy as lead dropped down
Preparatory to sleep,
When someone scaling the cliff ahead
Called out, began to weep.

‘God help me, sir, or I’ll fall below,
On that pile of jagged rocks,
Reach out for me and don’t let me go,
You don’t look the type that mocks.’
I noticed then that I’d dropped the book
In a pool of mud, and rank,
It fell agape with a broken back
The following pages blank.

‘I have to ask how your tale will end,
It’s unfinished in the book,
Your villainous deeds go on, and then
Disappear each time I look.’
‘It ends any way you want it to,
It’s the tale without an end,
For you are the villain in the book
You can do what you intend.’

I stood up straight and I kicked on out
At the figure on the cliff,
And he fell back with a scream, a shout
To the rocks along the reef,
I turned to pick up the broken book
Wiped the pages free from mud,
There wasn’t a single page left blank
Each page was stained with blood.

David Lewis Paget

They often walked in the garden, though
The garden was such a mess,
It was overgrown with Ivy, and
Choked up with watercress,
The pond was overflowing its banks
At the wet time of the year,
But no-one tended the garden then
It was much too hard to clear.

The house was old and the walls were damp
It had been a fine estate,
Built up from scratch by the pioneers
Then left to my schoolboy mate,
And now he was nearing twenty-five
And he had Germaine in tow,
I’d thought I could win her heart from him
But I had no place to go.

We lived, we three, in the house where we
Could each survive on our own,
While keeping the others company
Though not quite living alone,
So Paul lived up on the West Wing floor,
Germaine set up in the East,
While I had a couple of rooms downstairs,
In truth, I counted the least.

I stayed away from the garden when
I saw a snake in the pond,
More of a giant serpent that was
Six foot long, and beyond,
I didn’t caution the other two
For some strange quirk of my own,
For Paul would walk on the pondward side
While she would wander alone.

I heard her scream as the serpent came
Slithering up from the pool,
My blood ran cold as it struck at Paul,
He was much too close, the fool.
It bit, he said, on the hand and leg
It struck so fast, and had flown,
Then he called out in a chilling shout,
‘Its fangs went through to the bone!’

We carried him up in a faint that day
The venom was coursing his veins,
I must admit I was glad of it
For I only thought of Germaine.
She saw me stare at her auburn hair
And she must have known, before,
I’d been so very obsessed with her
But she only thought of Paul.

He lay in a fever there for days,
I thought that he might just die,
But felt ashamed of the thoughts that came,
My friendship caught in a lie,
If only she could have come to me
I could truly call him friend,
But she was true, and it seemed I knew
She would nurse him to the end.

One day she came, he was not the same,
She said, in a tortured tone,
‘His skin is starting to scale,’ she said,
‘He wants to be left alone.
His eyes have turned into tiny slits
And he seems to slither in bed,
His fangs are longer and sharper now
Than ever I’ve seen,’ she said.

I had to go, to see for myself,
I noticed his skin was grey,
His eyes were shifty, flickered about,
I didn’t know what to say,
He licked his lips but his tongue was forked
As if he’d split it in two,
His lips drew back and his fangs slid out,
‘What do I want with you?’

‘I’ve never seen such a change,’ I said,
‘How much of what’s left is Paul?’
He reared up in the bed at that
And flattened against the wall,
I felt that he was about to strike
So I left the room in a rush,
And told Germaine, ‘We had better leave,
Or it might mean the end of us.’

She stuck with Paul to the very end
I think that I knew she would,
They found her lying beside the pond
With her face suffused with blood.
Her skin looked just like a dragon’s scales
Her eyes pinpoints, if at all,
They killed two snakes in the garden pond,
There was nobody there called Paul.

David Lewis Paget