Take Me!

She wandered down to the rocky beach

On the first Monday in June,

She wore a shawl, and carried a wreath

And sat for the afternoon,

She’d wait til the sun was sinking low

And shadows moved in the caves,

Then stride out into the rising tide

And cast her wreath on the waves.

 

She didn’t flinch if the waves were high

Or the storm clouds brought her rain,

She gazed out past the horizon while

Her face was creased with pain,

When lightning flickered across the sky

She knew that the gods could see,

And wrung her hands with a terrible cry,

‘Will none of you pity me?’

 

‘Take me,’ she cried at the rising tide,

‘Take me,’ she groaned at the sky,

‘You’ve taken the only thing I loved

And not even told me why!’

She threw herself at the foam-fleck’d waves

Where the swell would rise and breach,

But ever the tide in its forward ride

Would cast her back on the beach.

 

She sheltered then in the echoing caves

That dotted the cliff face shore,

And tears had streamed from a source of grace

The gods had preserved once more,

She heard the echoes as waters lapped,

Or thundered in at the cave,

A voice that ever had held her rapt,

‘Be brave, my love, be brave!’

 

She shut her eyes and she reached on out

For the source of the voice’s charms,

And moaned for a distant memory

That had held her once in his arms,

But the sea was keeping his secrets now,

She could only guess, and pine,

She couldn’t know that he lay below

Near the coast of Palestine.

 

A stranger came on the woman there,

One of the gypsy folk,

Just as the lightning flickered once

And he wrapped her in his cloak.

He took her up to the top of the cliff

Where the unknown future lies,

As she turned aside to wave goodbye

There was lovelight in his eyes.

 

David Lewis Paget

Reviews

[Lyn Anderson]

Dark and breathless at the same time. Another wonderfully woven tale.

[Marie]

I like the images of the sea in this. I can just see that woman on the rocks, standing against the spray.

[s y e]

David, you know I always love your poems because it is like you are telling a whole story in so much more detail. Great job, dude.

[Becky C Strukamp]

Each of your writes keeps me spellbound from beginning to end David. Another masterpiece!

[Tina Louise UK]

Oh that gave me goosebumps! I love your writes so much, this was so beautifully bittersweet...really enjoyed :) x

[Delmar Cooper]

David,
I greatly enjoyed this narrative poem. I love a good old classic ballad, and whether this meets the technical definition or not I cannot say, but I say it is close enough for me. Bravo.