The Man Who Lived in the Cave

We’d moved on in to a clifftop house

When our babe was very young,

I had to erect a barbed wire fence

To keep our darling at home,

For Ellen was a precocious child

With a beautiful, smiling face,

But for all our efforts to tame her down

It was hard to keep her in place.

 

She would bounce about, would run on out

The moment we turned our backs,

Many a time I would see her climb

And she’d give us heart attacks.

‘She’s halfway up the chimney, John,

She’s climbed right up to the thatch,’

The wife would cry, and I’d almost die

In bringing our daughter back.

 

She’d stand awhile by the cottage gate

That led on out to the track,

That wound its way right down to the bay

On a narrow, winding path,

I wired the gate, and I thought it held

Till the day she broke on through,

And made her little way to the bay

Before we even knew.

 

I found her at the mouth of a cave

That sat just up from the shore,

And breathed a sigh of relief as we

Embraced, like never before,

But she pointed in to the darkened cave

With her tiny little hand,

‘I want to go in the cave with him,

That funny old sailor man!’

 

‘There isn’t a man in the cave,’ I said,

‘You must have been seeing things.’

‘Oh no! He asked me to follow him

And he showed me lots of rings.

He had a black patch over his eye,

And a ponytail in his hair,

I want to go where the sailor goes,

Will you let me go in there?’

 

I carried her back up the winding path

Though she clung to me and cried,

‘That cave is simply an eerie place

And it’s cold and damp inside.’

I should have taken more notice then,

I thought it was just a rave,

For days, young Ellen would speak of him,

The man who lived in the cave.

 

I went to check at the library,

The history of the town,

And read that smugglers used that cave

When nobody was around,

And long before there were buildings there

A smuggler on the run,

Had sheltered there in that dismal cave

With his daughter, Ellen Gunn.

 

I raced on home to the clifftop house

To find young Ellen gone,

The wife was having hysterics there

And I was overcome.

I ran, pell mell down the clifftop path

It was such a deathly scare,

And searched to the end of that awful cave

And I found her Teddy Bear.

 

A fisherman on the beach had seen

Young Ellen on the sand,

Then watched as a sailor took her in

To the cave there, hand in hand.

‘I thought that he was her father,’ said

The rustic fisherman,

‘She seemed quite happy to go with him

And he looked a kindly man.’

 

I must have searched it a dozen times

And I called, and cursed, and cried,

And prayed to god that I’d find my girl

Hid somewhere deep inside,

When out of the depths, she toddled out

Stood still, turned back to the cave,

And that’s when I glimpsed that sailor man,

Who stood at the back, and waved.

 

David Lewis Paget

Reviews

[MomzillaNC]

I like to think that closing means she went home again with her father and not back into the cave with “that sailor man.” The tale is gripping. I like the way you leave the ending to the reader’s imagination -- I’m sure some will see her going back into the cave with the sailor man and disappearing forever.

[BougaTimeBongo]

I love this story that you tell and I love the imagery you create. There is one thing that I find very distracting and that is the inconsistency of the rhyming. Some stanzas you have a structured pattern, others there is no rhyming whatsoever, others have yet another pattern...I am all for free form, but I personally find that when you incorporate rhyming into your poem, there needs to be a consistent structure, a commitment to the pattern.

[Marie]

I understand your concern here; my own verse is very tightly rhymed and scanned. But when DLP reads his poetry aloud, it all falls into place.

[BougaTimeBongo]

Perhaps that is what I am missing. I just can't find the rhythm, myself.

[Sindu]

Such an amusing and amazing tale, David! Has an eerie feel to it and can't help but smile at kiddie's antics and those poor parents plight. That was happy from one end and foreboding and confusing for the other.

[R Smith]

My word David, another exciting tale, where do they come from, if you wrote stories you'd be a best seller without doubt, this one is truly gripping and i feared the worse for the child but you gave us a happy ending and that's always worth a smile, wonderful! :)

[Amelia May]

may i add this to my favorites in my library?