The Jolly Little Cafe Where A Chestnut Tree Once Grew - A Monologue

An Edwardian style traditional monologue

There's a jolly little cafe where a chestnut tree once grew,
They serve hot bubbling tea and buttered toast,   
Where the waiter wears a waistcoat which is buttoned up askew  
And the waitress glides along much like a ghost.  

The chestnut in the glade has now fallen to the blade
Many years have passed since lovers neath it met  
And there below its shade, fickle promises were made,   
But promises are easy to forget.  

For there, or so they say, on one January day   
A maiden took her life beneath the tree   
And lifeless, then, she lay, the maid who lost her way,  
Who pleaded for her spirit to be free.  

Yet, the glade remembers well, when the dusk appears anew,    
And the customers have all gone home to bed   
And the jolly little cafe where a chestnut tree once grew   
Conceals the secret of the forlorn dead.  

Where, in the winter snow she was jilted by her beau
Beside the latent chestnut over there  
And twenty years ago, when the northern wind would blow   
The sorrow must have been too much to bear.  

So, the waitress, serving on, in the cafe called 'The Swan'   
Never, ever speaks or smiles or lifts her eyes    
And when the day is gone then, almost everyone   
Imagines and their minds romanticise.   

They think of teenage lovers hand in hand and in the spring      
Where bounty of the blazing brightness brims    
And think of summer swallows and all the song they bring,    
Of trueloves meeting neath the chestnut limbs.   

The waiter, by the door, paces proudly round the floor   
Taking orders from the ladies who call by   
And some twenty years or more he has been this way before   
Where he deserted a poor maiden young and shy.  

Though, if you ask 'Excuse me sir, the waitress, what of her?'  
When the cafe waiter passes near  
He'll peer at you with a stir and answer, as it were,
'We've had no waitress ever working here'.

There's a jolly little cafe where a chestnut tree once grew   
They serve hot bubbling tea and buttered toast   
Where the waiter wears a waistcoat which is buttoned up askew   
And the waitress glides along much like a ghost   


             

Reviews

[Julie McCarthy (juliesp..]

Oooh ahhh I loved this
My kind of poem to read loved the story

[Alan S Jeeves]

Hey Julie, How it pleases me to hear from you from the other side of the world to me. It is so wonderful when someone enjoys what I write and I thank you much for telling me. I love monologues Julie, although tricky they are very rewarding to put together. Kind regards, Alan, Yorkshire, England.

[William Michael Reeves]

Great story! Started to take an even darker turn when the events under the tree are revealed. But you kept it just light enough to be jolly. Dark jolly. I wonder if that's spreadable? You spread this jolly all over the page and I liked the taste of it!!

Bill

[Alan S Jeeves]

Monologues are great fun to write I think Bill, they should also be enjoyable for the reader too. They were very popular in Edwardian England and gentlemen amassed a repertoire of them. Of course, 'The Jolly Little Cafe' is completely fiction. Kind regards, Alan