The old man sat in a musty room
And his eyes peered on outside,
Where trees were lost in the evening gloom
With the rest of the countryside,
He watched the woman, tied to a tree
As she shook her golden hair,
And cried again, so piteously
In the essence of despair.

There weren’t so many, roaming and free
He thought, in the cruel world,
Not more than a few in captivity
And some, they called them ‘a girl’,
He thought of his faded mother then
Before they took her away,
And told him then, he was only ten
That they needed her for ‘play’.

He’d caught this one in a rabbit trap
As she crept in the depth of the wood,
Her hair was gold but her eyes were black
And she’d fought him, well and good,
He bound her wrists and shackled her feet
Before he could let her be,
Then carried her back to his tiny shack
And tied her fast to a tree.

He didn’t know what to do with her
He’d never had one alone,
Maybe she’d make good eating when
He stripped her down to the bone,
Out in the night he tore her dress
When taking her clothing down,
Then stood amazed with his eyebrows raised
At the extra flesh he found.

She couldn’t speak in his language then
But only could scream and cry,
He hadn’t hurt or abused her, when
She glared, and spat in his eye,
So he filled up the ancient cooking ***
And he brought her slow to the boil,
Then when she was dead, he took her head
In hopes that her meat not spoil.

David Lewis Paget