The Final Message

He put a flint to the lantern once

They’d walked across the crest,

Were lost in a group of headstones that

Lay hidden from the rest,

And down in a slight depression he

Lit up a certain tomb,

Where the name of Elspeth Trelawney

Was reflected in the gloom.

Trelawney held up the lantern high

While Corby held the spade,

And Gordon Bracks with an old pick-axe

Stood back, he was afraid.

‘I fear the spirits are out tonight

In this graveyard of the damned!’

‘Get on, and turn up the sod,’ he said,

Trelawney forced his hand.

 

The Squire was quiet and ashen-faced

As the two had bent their backs,

Corby tipping the earth aside

Then standing aside for Bracks,

‘The earth is solid, it’s packed right down,

We need to pick it loose,’

‘Just do whatever you have to do,

There’s little time to lose!’

 

The Squire had buried his Elspeth back

In eighteen twenty-four,

For seven years he had held his grief

But he couldn’t take much more,

‘I have to see her again,’ he said,

To kiss her pale, dead lips,

To stroke the hair on my darling’s head

And caress her fingertips.’

 

She’d taken the coach and four one day

Way out in the countryside,

The coachman, used to a horse and dray,

Had begun to speed the ride,

He whipped the horses and lost the reins

As the coach began to slide,

Tipped the coach in the watercourse

Where Elspeth drowned and died.

 

He hadn’t looked at his lover’s face

Before she was interred,

But tried to avoid the loss of grace

In her face that was inferred.

‘I only want to remember her

As she was in the flush of life,

Not in the throes of death,’ he’d said

When talking about his wife.

 

They’d rushed to hurry the burial,

On the day that she was found,

Popped her into a coffin, then,

Planted her in the ground,

Trelawney later had agonised

That he hadn’t let her lie,

‘I couldn’t bear her to be around,’

He said, with a tearful eye.

 

But now he wanted to see her face,

They lifted the coffin lid,

While Gordon Bracks had turned his back

To see what Trelawney did,

The horror showed on the Squire’s face

As he gazed into her eyes,

For Elspeth lay in a bleak dismay

As her fate was realized.

 

Her hands were raised and they looked like claws

They’d scratched at the coffin lid,

The clumps of hair she had torn right out

Was the final thing she did,

And on the lid she had scratched his name

In the torment of the damned,

‘Trelawney, may you be cursed by God!’

She’d scratched, with her dying hand.

 

David Lewis Paget

Reviews

[Linda Marie Van Tassell]

Oh, dear! I always love how your poems just pull me in. I begin reading and just enjoy the ride, never knowing where my final destination will be. I know that this happened quite a bit in earlier years, where people were buried alive by mistake. I can't imagine the horror one would feel in that situation. Worse, to disinter someone to discover that they had cursed you with her last breath because you had buried them alive. The horror!

[Ellen Hammond]

Wow! Didn't see that ending coming. But that is often the case when I read your awesome poetry. You have such a wonderful gift for serving up gruesome tales with a twist. Love it!

[Sheila Kline]

Ah another to keep me absolutely spell bound until the ending as I am reading along, and trying to formulate in my mind as to why he wanted to see her again - thinking this and that, and that and this, and of course not ever guessing the ending - a David Lewis Paget classic!!! They were probably digging his grave next........lol

Another great story my friend!!! It seems as if the horrendous heat in your part of the world is not interfering with your ability to write!!! My goodness, I see bats colonies are falling from the sky from the heat!!! Now, that is the makings for a gruesome story - It's raining bats instead of men - sorry, couldn't help "me-self"!

[Lena M. P.]

Oh my gosh David. Ok, so you hit on my biggest fear so this one hit a cord with me. Too scary.