The Barley Stooks

There’s a silence out in the fields tonight

Where the barley sheaves are stooked,

Their shadows stand in a menacing line

While the wives at home are spooked,

They peer from windows, they peer from doors

And they lock their shutters tight,

There isn’t a man in the valley’s span

For they didn’t come home tonight.

 

They left their cottages there at dawn

As the sun was on the rise,

Wandered out with their ploughman’s lunch

And rubbed the sleep from their eyes,

They carried their sickles across their backs

Their fagging hooks and their flails,

And who could read took a crumpled book

To read with a half of ale.

 

They bent their backs to the task ahead

Of reaping the sheaves of grain,

The clouds were billowing overhead

And they said, ‘It looks like rain!’

The sun went in and the sun came out

As the shadows flitted across,

They stooked the sheaves at an angle so

The rain would drain from the crops.

 

The rain held off ‘til the afternoon

When the men were streaked with sweat,

They sheltered under the Sycamores,

Laid down their tools in the wet,

The wives were busily cleaning homes,

Preparing the worker’s tea,

They didn’t look out to the barley field

‘Til the sun dipped into the sea.

 

They didn’t look, it was almost dusk

When they noticed something wrong,

The men would usually come back home,

They’d hear them, singing a song,

A silence settled upon the land

And the wives came out to stare,

But nothing moved in the barley field,

The men were just not there.

 

Their faces white in the pale moonlight

The wives sat still, and stared,

The stooks were seeming to move about

And the women, they were scared,

The stooks lined up in the barley field

Like a pack of hooded ghouls,

And lying right in the midst of them

Was a heap of reaping tools.

 

There’s a silence out in the fields tonight

Where the barley sheaves are stooked,

Their shadows stand in a menacing line

While the wives at home are spooked,

They peer from windows, they peer from doors

And they lock their shutters tight,

There isn’t a man in the valley’s span

For they didn’t come home tonight.

 

David Lewis Paget

Reviews

[Nusquam Esse]

You are excellent at writing narrative poetry; very atmospheric stories which seem unique and intimate. Yet at the same time you excel at rhyme and meter, which far too many poets neglect. I have respect for how solid these narratives are considering your form. I have only tried narrative poetry a few times, and it is far more difficult than most people give it credit!

[WE]

I am truly enthralled with the way you tell a story

[Baby Ricochet]

Man, and I b***h when my girlfriend sends me to the store.

[Glen Yumang Manese]

Indeed --- the lines of this narrative...like the one I just read...
the first and the last stanza repeat in this one...
gives the whole story line...
and renders completion of yet another narrative of a write...

[Tate Morgan]

It would seem that mother nature would have the last laugh in who commands whom

[Marie]

I've read of these strange disappearences...the crew of the Marie Celeste...the colony at Ronoak...and now the barley stooks...

[A Soap Mess Stories]

Another great story David

[BlackRose]

FABulous story like poem. like how it all came together, with woman in there homes and the men out working along with the great ending repeating with the beginning tying it all together. As usual, well done.

[Raymond Federle]

Almost more of a story than poem but that makes it even better!!!!! Well done my friend!

[roarke]

Great setting David. I enjoyed how your described the men going off to work in the fields, excellent. The wives don't go and search for their husbands and all that's left are their tools....hmmm something to ponder indeed.