The Landau

The winter fogs roll in from the Thames

While frost forms up on the eaves,

The damp will settle in aching bones,

While the trees are bereft of leaves;

The streets were stark in the old East End

A footfall echoed and died,

And nights when the homes were shuttered in

They listened to wheels outside.

 

A Landau, black as the devil’s sin

And drawn by a single horse,

Rolled slowly up to The Black Dog Inn

By the side of the watercourse,

When out there came from the bawdy house

In black from her head to tail,

A dollymop with a nosegay,

Wearing a bonnet, black, with a veil.

 

She’d climb up into the Landau while

The coachman, clad in a cloak,

Would give one flick with the reins,

And pull on the bit ‘til the horse had choked,

He’d take them off with a clatter

Wheels a-rattle on cobblestones,

His eyes agleam like a demon

While he whipped the horse to the bone.

 

The horse’s hooves on the cobbles

Warned ahead through the fog and mist,

As people cowered in doorways

Shouted a curse as the Landau passed,

They followed the glow of the gaslamps

Shedding their weak and feeble light,

And raced by the mighty river

Into the dark of the endless night.

 

They came to a halt at Wapping

Down where the river cast its spawn,

The bodies of dead and drowned who’d

Cursed their mothers for being born,

And hung on poles at the river’s edge

Was another terrible sight,

The bodies of sailor mutineers

That swung in their chains at night.

 

Hung on the Tyburn gallows

Then cut down and shackled again,

The bodies were coated with tallow

For a post mortem hanging in chain,

They’d bind them up with a winding cloth

Then coat them again in tar,

Hang them in chains at the riverside

‘Til their dust blew near and far.

 

The woman climbed out of the Landau

Took one look, and fell to her knees,

Her lover hung gently swaying,

Swaying in time to the river breeze,

His eyes stared out from the candle wax

And his mouth was shaped in an ‘Oh!’

He seemed to be saying, ‘Goodbye, my love;

What a terrible way to go!’

 

She wept like a woman demented,

Seized his legs, and pulled to her breast,

Clung to his swinging figure

Moaned like a creature, quite obsessed,

She tried transferring her warmth to him

But his cold was the cold of death,

And his eyes stared straight ahead of him

No thoughts, no love, no breath!

 

She climbed back into the Landau

As the coachman whipped it away,

And often at night they hear it go,

Those folks down Wapping way,

They say it spattered a stream of blood

On the road as it raced on by,

From the dollymop who’d slashed her throat

And lay in the coach to die.

 

And when there’s a mighty river fog

In the winter, down by the Thames,

They sit in the Inn they call Black Dog

And they drink to the health of friends,

They drink to the ones who’ve gone before

As they hear the wheels outside,

And hold their breath at the emptiness

As the door is opened wide!

 

David Lewis Paget

Reviews

[Tate Morgan]

Dave this one is the best .I loved it The wording the cadence it sings like the sorrow it entails.What a tale! This is another in line with the carousel and Lightning Jack it is the type of story i have come to expect and herald as only from you.I could read anything of yours and immediately know it was from you.But this is at the top with the previously mentioned and the great eastern . Absolute immortality will be yours with the likes of this congratulations ten stars and a snap for this!!! I will send immediately out to all.

[Lena M. P.]

Gruesome David to the max. Still feeling the trembling in my bones.

[Rob Santana]

Incredible! This reads like a movie script. Very creative.