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To Jenny came a gentle youth
   From inland leazes lone;
His love was fresh as apple-blooth
   By Parrett, Yeo, or Tone.
And duly he entreated her
To be his tender minister,
   And call him aye her own.

Fair Jenny’s life had hardly been
   A life of modesty;
At Casterbridge experience keen
   Of many loves had she
From scarcely sixteen years above:
Among them sundry troopers of
   The King’s-Own Cavalry.

But each with charger, sword, and gun,
   Had bluffed the Biscay wave;
And Jenny prized her gentle one
   For all the love he gave.
She vowed to be, if they were wed,
His honest wife in heart and head
   From bride-ale hour to grave.

Wedded they were. Her husband’s trust
   In Jenny knew no bound,
And Jenny kept her pure and just,
   Till even malice found
No sin or sign of ill to be
In one who walked so decently
   The duteous helpmate’s round.

Two sons were born, and bloomed to men,
   And roamed, and were as not:
Alone was Jenny left again
   As ere her mind had sought
A solace in domestic joys,
And ere the vanished pair of boys
   Were sent to sun her cot.

She numbered near on sixty years,
   And passed as elderly,
When, in the street, with flush of fears,
   On day discovered she,
From shine of swords and thump of drum,
Her early loves from war had come,
   The King’s Own Cavalry.

She turned aside, and bowed her head
   Anigh Saint Peter’s door;
“Alas for chastened thoughts!” she said;
   “I’m faded now, and ****,
And yet those notes—they thrill me through,
And those gay forms move me anew
   As in the years of yore!”…

—’Twas Christmas, and the Phoenix Inn
   Was lit with tapers tall,
For thirty of the trooper men
   Had vowed to give a ball
As “Theirs” had done (fame handed down)
When lying in the self-same town
   Ere Buonaparté’s fall.

That night the throbbing “Soldier’s Joy,”
   The measured tread and sway
Of “Fancy-Lad” and “Maiden Coy,”
   Reached Jenny as she lay
Beside her spouse; till springtide blood
Seemed scouring through her like a flood
   That whisked the years away.

She rose, and rayed, and decked her head
   To hide her ringlets thin;
Upon her cap two bows of red
   She fixed with hasty pin;
Unheard descending to the street,
She trod the flags with tune-led feet,
   And stood before the Inn.

Save for the dancers’, not a sound
   Disturbed the icy air;
No watchman on his midnight round
   Or traveller was there;
But over All-Saints’, high and bright,
Pulsed to the music Sirius white,
   The Wain by Bullstake Square.

She knocked, but found her further stride
   Checked by a sergeant tall:
“Gay Granny, whence come you?” he cried;
   “This is a private ball.”
—”No one has more right here than me!
Ere you were born, man,” answered she,
   “I knew the regiment all!”

“Take not the lady’s visit ill!”
   Upspoke the steward free;
“We lack sufficient partners still,
   So, prithee let her be!”
They seized and whirled her ’mid the maze,
And Jenny felt as in the days
   Of her immodesty.

Hour chased each hour, and night advanced;
   She sped as shod with wings;
Each time and every time she danced—
   Reels, jigs, poussettes, and flings:
They cheered her as she soared and swooped
(She’d learnt ere art in dancing drooped
   From hops to slothful swings).

The favorite Quick-step “Speed the Plough”—
   (Cross hands, cast off, and wheel)—
“The Triumph,” “Sylph,” “The Row-dow dow,”
   Famed “Major Malley’s Reel,”
“The Duke of York’s,” “The Fairy Dance,”
“The Bridge of Lodi” (brought from France),
   She beat out, toe and heel.

The “Fall of Paris” clanged its close,
   And Peter’s chime told four,
When Jenny, *****-beating, rose
   To seek her silent door.
They tiptoed in escorting her,
Lest stroke of heel or ***** of spur
   Should break her goodman’s snore.

The fire that late had burnt fell slack
   When lone at last stood she;
Her nine-and-fifty years came back;
   She sank upon her knee
Beside the durn, and like a dart
A something arrowed through her heart
   In shoots of agony.

Their footsteps died as she leant there,
   Lit by the morning star
Hanging above the moorland, where
   The aged elm-rows are;
And, as o’ernight, from Pummery Ridge
To Maembury Ring and Standfast Bridge
   No life stirred, near or far.

Though inner mischief worked amain,
   She reached her husband’s side;
Where, toil-weary, as he had lain
   Beneath the patchwork pied
When yestereve she’d forthward crept,
And as unwitting, still he slept
   Who did in her confide.

A tear sprang as she turned and viewed
   His features free from guile;
She kissed him long, as when, just wooed.
   She chose his domicile.
Death menaced now; yet less for life
She wished than that she were the wife
   That she had been erstwhile.

Time wore to six. Her husband rose
   And struck the steel and stone;
He glanced at Jenny, whose repose
   Seemed deeper than his own.
With dumb dismay, on closer sight,
He gathered sense that in the night,
   Or morn, her soul had flown.

When told that some too mighty strain
   For one so many-yeared
Had burst her *****’s master-vein,
   His doubts remained unstirred.
His Jenny had not left his side
Betwixt the eve and morning-tide:
   —The King’s said not a word.

Well! times are not as times were then,
   Nor fair ones half so free;
And truly they were martial men,
   The King’s-Own Cavalry.
And when they went from Casterbridge
And vanished over Mellstock Ridge,
   ’Twas saddest morn to see.
brandon nagley Nov 2015
i.

Coming out of the state of anabiosis, mine form was ripped and torn, mine adorn was battered and burned, I went through Hades whilst the pit of death's kiss shattered me in agowilt;

ii.

I was dying, in Hell's kilt; once a shape, now ***** in a pit of unsatisfactory demon's; roped, doped, bleeding.

iii.

The scaled creature's bit me, the ceiling's muck dripped me, whilst at mine ending breath's, a light shined forthward, a Filipino empress.

iv.

I was nothingness: a mess, molested, infected, by the realm of raven's nest's. That's when she thundered in, in Baro’t saya wonder; twas me who on the sea, on her lip's i swirled up-with Satan down under, mine tears hadst fluttered by like butterfly's; mine ghost awoke with Jane;

v.

Twas, she was
Heaven on
Mine side;
She took me
For a ride,
Back to
Life
Again!!!



©Brandon Nagley
©Lonesome poet's poetry
©Earl Jane Nagley dedicated ( Filipino rose)
agowilt- is sudden fear.. Fear!!! An archaic word now gone. .
anabiosis is- life after death. Or coming back to life from death.
Forthward- means forward in archaic form...
Baro’t saya means- the main dress for Filipino women. Or traditional...
Eve Estelle Dec 2018
Forgive yourself and fellows,
When footing has been lost;
One's fall from grace is torment,
The second has a cost;
Of flesh and blood you still remain,
Yet own your every err;
Accept the past you cannot change,
Confess that you were there;
Set right the things that tend to slip
Post-stumble, fall, or break;
Mend the wounds with loving hands,
That none are left to ache;
Lucid men are forged in fire,
Adepts are those who learn --
Without trial, sans blunder,
Success is not of our concern;
Decay takes to dusty wings,
But is down truly ever out?
Arise, for failure comes to those,
Only those, who sit and lie in doubt;
Forthward.
Certain words are intended to be bolded: Forgive [first line], Own [sixth line], Set right [ninth line], Learn [14th line], and Forthward [final line].
Moustafa Hefnawy Aug 2016
I trust not; in all; let alone the one; he who heeds deeds and misleads; let alone lately, late lasting lily lake light-outs, and a fragrance of brothels; let alone ladies; whom shiver in timbers of whimsical whispers; warriors and such, just not so much; let alone stabbing knives, the whirlwind winds, the ancient mimes of moonlit jives; deserted by sunrise, blessed with nocturnal eyes. I trust not; verily; to shout merrily; we were here once; within that shrouded ponce; alas, it has come to pass; a shiny piece of glass; and contemporary jazz; I reminisce on bliss; a dire pegasus; a daring precipice; the circus maximus; hands aloft in the great gymnastic overthrow of ages. In the wake of a blunder, we all stand asunder; clutching crutches, avoiding crunches, unaware of blind arms carrying lame legs forthward, essentially; a wisdom of ages; a grasp of sages; locked cages, and a heap of pages. Resent me not, for I have sought, in the wake of the wry; a luminous high; lustrous and illustrious; foretold stories of quandary, and magnificence; where have we gone; to reach such lowly heights; what have we sown; to silence so prone; and much to condone. Take me back; to the dream so lifelike of circles; take me to the midst of a wardrobe of callous miracles…  
…and I will know what I like;
I will know what I like.
david mitchell Jun 2020
flaunting verbiage,
with a monkish tint,
hungry and spent.
a mild breath scent, emanating herb and taciturnity.
trundling forthward, draped in a certain verdancy,
certainly burdened with this flirtatiously unhinged uncertainty.
no longer careening, bundling kindling,
suffering kinship, indexing my woolgathering,
to begin the inner mending, expenditure now dwindling.
ontologically building, a great garden in sentience, ascending,
extentless, heaven, now, then, ever present.
Take me back mystic moon sage to the time when Jocko Henderson ruled Allen Klein; when Buddy Knox had a bank account; when stuck-together dogs were on their own; when McDonald's patties were worm- & eyeball-free...
   By confessing to drinking alcohol (any amount of alcohol), while driving, you are providing evidence for your prosecution & conviction. Breath tests are notoriously inaccurate as the machines aren't properly cleaned, stored and tested.
   My forth-putting ways proved forth-telling in the flattest world known that lurches never forthward. In common practise, in hippy communae: mammae & arolae & vulvae of clatches (Scottish:  sluttish or slipshod women) are up for tweeting & tickling.
My forth-putting ways proved forth-telling in the flattest world known that lurches never forthward. In common practise, in hippy communae: mammae & arolae & vulvae of clatches (Scottish:  sluttish or slipshod women) are up for tweeting & tickling.

— The End —