The rambling house was all run down,
Well, what you could even see of it,
It sat in extensive, weedy grounds
And a hawthorn hedge surrounded it.
The windows hadn’t been cleaned for years
The door was weathered, and boarded in,
They said that a hermit lived in there
Well hidden away from a world of sin.

And Sally was more than curious
Each time that we wandered by that way,
‘How could he live so close to us
And never be seen,’ she’d often say.
‘He must be lonely, or maybe mad,
I’d love to wander the rooms in there,’
But I said nothing, I thought it sad
And bad that Sally could even care.

‘I heard that he had a woman once
Before, when the house was nice and neat,
She worked in the garden there for months
And the house was visible from the street.
But that was before the hedgerow grew
And something happened, she went inside,
And never came out, not that I knew,
The rumours spread that the woman died.’

The weeks went by, she became obsessed,
‘What if she’s been imprisoned there?
Didn’t they ask, or go and check?’
‘Nobody knew, or even cared!
It happened so many years ago
And the garden overgrew with weeds,
Nobody wanted to even know,
Or interfere with a stranger’s deeds.’

Sally would stand by the broken gate
And peer on in at the jungle there,
‘Whatever you think, it’s far too late,
They’ll think you’re mad if you stand and stare.’
‘Somebody has to show they care,
I’m going into that house one night,
I want to know if she’s still in there
And so should you, if your head is right.’

I said I wouldn’t become involved,
So she went off on her crazy scheme,
Into the dark she sauntered forth
While I was asleep, and lost in dream.
She wasn’t there when I woke at dawn,
I searched the house and I went outside,
Took in the rambling house’s form
Then knew she’d gone, and I almost died.

I battled my way in through the weeds
And got to the house, the door ajar,
I called out, ‘Sally, just come on out,
I need you back, wherever you are.’
The house lay still as an ancient tomb,
The air was chill and the rooms were bare,
The dust was thick in the morning gloom
For nobody had been living there.

And Sally sat on a tiny mound
Out back, and near the wooded copse,
The grave I’d dug, with a stone surround
And covered with blue forget-me-nots.
‘You shouldn’t have come,’ I shook my head,
‘What’s done was done, and it can’t be changed,
She left for a share of my brother’s bed,
I would that it could be rearranged.’

But Sally sat with an empty stare
And I knew that I’d lost her then for good,
She didn’t know of that other mound
That my brother made in that tiny wood.
‘So this is the end of love that’s lost,’
She said, with the merest wave of her hand,
‘I’ll leave you alone to count the cost,’
Then leapt to her feet, and turned, and ran.

David Lewis Paget