She had met this handsome stranger
So she told me, at some dance,
And I knew then she’d be leaving me,
I didn’t stand a chance,
She had not seemed so excited since
I’d given her a ring,
But I saw she wasn’t wearing it,
It didn’t mean a thing!

So I asked her where this dance had been,
She didn’t seem to know,
She’d drifted in there like some dream
Where lovers always go,
I asked her who was there, she said
They’d glided round in grace,
And but for him, her eyes were dim,
She’d not recalled one face.

She hesitating, placed the ring
Back in my open hand,
‘I don’t have any choice,’ she said,
‘I knew you’d understand!’
I didn’t, but I bit my tongue,
No point to cause a scene,
I hoped that she’d get over it,
But something was unclean.

I sat and moped at home awhile,
She’d cut me to the quick,
I’d planned my life around her,
Marriage, children, all of it,
But then I felt resentment rise
And choke me to the core,
I’d need to see him, ****-his-eyes,
See what I’d lost her for.

So I began to roam the streets
And watch her, though unseen,
To hide in handy bushes, just
To find out where she’d been,
Then one dark night she ventured out
And walked, as in a trance,
I followed at a distance as
She went to join the dance.

The gates were flung wide open to
A long, curved gravel drive,
A house with gothic columns, where
The gargoyles looked alive,
I didn’t see another soul
As Anne had ventured in,
But ballroom music filled the air
With subtle hints of sin.

I sidled to the ballroom and
I hid, as best I could,
While phantom figures whirled about,
Transparent through each hood,
The only solid forms I saw
Were first, my trancelike Anne,
And something evil on the floor
That could have been a man.

That could have been a man, I said
Despite his long black cloak,
The horns that grew from out his head
That looked just like a goat,
The tail that flicked behind it with
A barb of polished steel,
It could have been a man, I said,
But no, that sight was real!

Behind Anne was a marble slab
With bloodstains, from before,
A pale and polished altar that
Was raised up from the floor,
He took Anne in his arms, began
To sway and dance her round,
‘You’re dancing with the Devil, Anne,’
I screamed, and held my ground.

He roared, and turned his evil face
To glare where I was stood,
My heart stood still inside me, like
My heart was made of wood,
Then Anne began to shriek, her eyes
Now seeing what I saw,
Pulled back, and disentangled from
Each evil crablike claw.

I don’t know how we got outside,
I only know we fled,
With terror stricken eyes and hearts
We thought that we were dead.
That house went up, a puff of smoke
Amid a demon roar,
Now Anne won’t dance, no handsome stranger
Tempts her anymore!

David Lewis Paget