‘I am so tired, so tired,’ he said,
‘So tired but cannot sleep,’
He lay there restless in his bed
But could not even weep.
‘I’m all wept out,’ he would have said
If she’d been there to hear,
But he lay in an empty bed
Since she had disappeared.

‘It’s not as if she left a note
To say she’d not be there,’
He watched the light bulb spider weave
A web above his stare,
She’d gone down to the market at
The other end of town,
And though he searched, she’d left his world
She’d turned it upside down.

The stallkeepers had seen her there
She’d gone from stall to stall,
Whenever she’d go shopping she
Would want to see it all,
Her endless curiosity
Had kept him home that day,
His legs would never carry him
The miles she’d walk that way.

‘Go try the stall that sells the scarves,
I’m sure I saw her there,’
She never did do things by halves
Of that he was aware,
‘Go see the stall with rings and things,
She bought an amulet,
A silver chain, all old and stained
And placed it round her neck.’

He’d looked in vain to find the stall
But he had packed and gone,
‘We didn’t really want him here
With such a carry-on,
He dealt in spells and tiny bells
And readings in his tent,
We wondered what was going on
Then he packed up, and went.’

And no-one saw which way he’d gone,
They didn’t even try,
‘We didn’t want to mess with him,
He had the evil eye.
Two other guys have lost their wives
As well, since he came here,
They go into that tent of his
Then seem to disappear.’

‘He kept a cage of spiders, that I know,
I saw them there,
Of many different colours, weaving
Cobwebs in the air,
He said they were his weavers, making
Gossamer, so sad,
He’d sell it in the Faery Dell, he said,
The man was mad!’

‘I am so tired, so tired,’ he said,
‘So tired but cannot sleep,’
He lay there restless in his bed
But could not even weep.
He watched the light bulb spider weave
A web above his stare,
And cried aloud, ‘Where are you, Eve?
I’m lost in my despair!’

David Lewis Paget