Falconridge

I never can look when I’m riding past

The ruin of Falconridge,

I turn the head of my horse away

When I cross the Narrows Bridge,

And I concentrate on the countryside,

Try not to think of Clair,

Or the simple stone where she lies alone

Beneath its towers there.

 

But now and then I will think again

Of her and her sister Ruth,

Of the happy days when we used to play

In the dim days of our youth,

We would picnic out in the meadows

And I would chase them over the bridge,

For a kiss or two, though I came to rue

The House of Falconridge!

 

For Ruth was the elder of the two

And should have been first in line,

She grew to a haughty damosel

So I wouldn’t make her mine,

But Clair was bubbly, full of fun

And she showed she really cared,

So I knew that she was the only one

From the love that we had shared.

 

‘You will not marry my sister Clair,

I must be the first one wed,

I’ll not be seen as unwanted, left

To cry alone in my bed.’

So Ruth petitioned her father that

He halt our marriage plans,

But he had shrugged off his daughter,

‘This affair is out of my hands!’

 

The Banqueting Hall in Falconridge

Was decked with flags and flowers,

While Ruth went muttering her dismay

And hid in one of the towers,

She didn’t come out for the service

Though she did come out for the ball,

But sat and glowered at Clair, as we

Had danced our way round the hall.

 

Their father brought in the caterers

From the other side of the lake,

And they had wheeled in the greatest prize,

A huge five layered cake,

The tiny figures of bride and groom

Stood proudly on the top,

Then Ruth had suddenly come awake,

Leapt up and shouted, ‘Stop!’

 

The guests had stared, and a sudden hush

Befell the Banqueting Hall,

As Ruth seized both the bride and the groom

And dashed them against the wall,

She seized the knife from the wedding cake

And screamed in a long, high note:

‘I hate you all at this wedding ball!’

Then stabbed my Clair in the throat.

 

She ran right out of the Banqueting Hall,

I held poor Clair in my arms,

The blood poured over my wedding suit

As they called the Master-At-Arms,

She locked herself in the Northern Tower

And she lit a fire by the door,

Then ran right up to the topmost room,

Lay wailing, there on the floor.

 

The fire spread up through the Northern Tower

As Clair expired in my arms,

I couldn’t see through the veil of tears

How the guests had fled in alarm,

‘My love, my love,’ she had sighed at last

‘I forgive my sister Ruth,

We shouldn’t have taken her place away,

We wronged her, that is the truth!’

 

The fire raged, and burnt to a shell

The whole of Falconridge,

But Ruth they found, blackened and burned

As her flesh peeled off in strips,

She’s locked in one of the tower rooms

Will be locked in there for life,

With her claw-like hands and melted face

But it won’t bring back my wife!

 

I had a mirror placed by the door

She can see herself through the bars,

She has to suffer as I have done

By looking out on her scars,

And from the ruin of Falconridge

You may hear her cry, somehow,

When the Moon is over the Narrows Bridge:

‘Who will marry me now?’

 

David Lewis Paget

Reviews

[Tate Morgan]

This poem cruises along at a fast pace. So set in the rhyme and meter to which you have mastered. What a tale .My guess is if this isnt true It may have happened in the past unbeknown to us. It scales the walls of human nature and fords the creek in a bound. So sad are we who just cant see .We are fit to be placed in the ground.

[TL Boehm]

the chaos and the pure evil in the heart of a haughty woman when love, even the love of two others should be celebrated. the perfect theme for this aching tragedy - once again you have excelled at delivering a profound tale.

[Marie]

A dreadful tail of jealousy and love...by killing her sister Ruth also sealed her own fate...no one will marry her now...

[Linda Marie Van Tassell]

Wow! This is such a sad tale, on all accounts. I feel sorry for all of the characters within the poem. It's haunting and maccabre. Very well written.

[Sheila Kline]

Oh my, such a tragic tale for poor Clair and her beloved at the hands of the wicked sister! I find it noble that even as she was dying Clair found it in our gentle spirit to forgive her sister!
This reminds me of "what goes around, comes around" as the mirror served as a constant reminder to her embodied spirit that she was doomed to the horror of who she was! And it is wise of the groom to never look there when passing as it would have just intensified his grief for his lost love!
David, you continue to entertain us with your tales of times past! I love every one of them!!

[Baby Ricochet]

Man, and I thought my X wife had issues

[Strider Marcus Jones]

An epic haunting tragedy. Magnificent poem. 100/100

[Enid Blake]

What a macabre tale, locked up in a tower with only her own evil reflected back at her. He definately picked the right sister!