Cliff House

A smugglers tale

When the sun has set in the wintertime

And I'm all alone in this grey old house,

I bolt the shutters and pull the blinds

And set a spark to the candlewax;

The wind runs howling about the eaves,

The shutters chatter, the wind-c**k spins,

The breakers clatter and clash below

As my world returns to me, widdershins.

 

It's then that I hear my mother's voice

So faint at first in the storm outside,

She sighs and moans, and I hear her plead

The length and breadth of the countryside.

Her voice soughs out from the aspens near,

Quivers in ferns and rocks, as if

No year that followed has spent her need

For still she sobs at the edge of the cliff.

 

Her voice comes whispering under the door

I plug my ears and I cry out loud:

'Leave me, mother, you worked your will,

You earned your fee of a graveyard shroud!'

Still she mutters and moans for him

The shape that darkened our outer door,

Whenever my father was not around

I'd hear his steps on the oaken floor.

 

Then I'd be sent to my lonely room

And told to play as she locked me in,

Her eyes were bright and her tone was gay

As she breathless, left for her wayward sin.

I heard them laugh in the room above,

The steady beat as they rocked the bed,

And then he'd bellow, and she would scream

As I pulled the covers right over my head.

 

On winter nights she would pace the floor,

Impatient then, and she'd peer outside,

Men with torches were on the beach

And I'd hear them curse at the rising tide.

But then I'd peek through my window shades

To see them marching up over the hill,

Carrying barrels and flagons of wine

To the village, seen from my window-sill.

 

She caught me once and she screamed in fright,

'You never, never must look, you see!

Those men are phantoms, they're only ghosts

From wrecks aground on the outer key.'

Then later came the knock at the door,

I saw the shadow, the wide brimmed hat,

And as she turned the key in the lock,

I heard her whisper, and sigh: 'Oh Jack!'

 

I asked her once who the stranger was

Who came so late, it was awful queer,

'It's always dark when he comes to call,

He never comes when my father's here.'

My mother grimaced, and turned quite pale

Then said, 'he brings us our victuals, son,

Tea and coffee, sugar and salt,

And a bushel of wheat and barleycorn.'

 

One day, a team of Revenue Men

Were waiting there in the cove below,

A gale was blowing, the breakers crashed,

I woke when the early rooster crowed.

Then lights and men in a mad melee

And a gun went off and a scream of pain,

I watched as they marched them over the hill,

A line of phantoms encased in chain.

 

My mother ran from the open door,

Out to the windswept cliff she fled,

I heard her moan as she looked on down

At the figure that lay on the beach, stone dead.

My father followed her, looking grim

As he stood behind in the driving rain,

But mother fell to her knees, and wailed

Like a banshee whirled in a pit of pain.

 

I left the window, I crossed the room,

I took the stairs at a run that day,

The door lay open to morning gloom

I raced on out in the pouring rain.

But over toward the edge of the cliff

I could see my father, looking down,

Mother lay on the beach below, while

All my father could do was frown.

 

I'll never know if she jumped that day

To join the shape that lay dead on the beach,

Or whether my father pushed her there,

A love long dead, that was out of reach.

He cried no tears, that I recall

When they buried them both in a hillside grave,

But followed them after a year and a day,

Slashed his throat in the old church nave.

 

Years have gone, and I prowl the house,

Perched on the edge of this dreadful cliff,

I dare not leave, for my mother's cries

Blow in and out from the storm swept reef.

But late on wintry nights the sound

Of those heavy steps on the oaken floor,

A shadow passes my room at night

And my mother sighs, and I hear no more.

 

David Lewis Paget

Reviews

[Linda Marie Van Tassell]

You, my friend, should come with a warning: ADDICTIVE. This narrative has such a haunting sense of melancholy to it. The intonation of the first stanza seems quite sad.

"When the sun has set in the wintertime
And I'm all alone in this grey old house..."

These lines seem to symbolize the age of the man more than the house, a man who is well-worn and weary and troubled from the years.

This is another fine tale.

Keep your heart within your pen, and the ages will remember you.

Linda Marie Van Tassell

[Mark]

This is something a Coleridge or a Longfellow would be proud to put his name to, David. It the first of your poems that I have read, but it shall not be the last, this I know.
What means "widdershins"?

[Aspiring Angel]

I am so sorry that I have not been able to come and enjoy your work before now. Like kind of has a firm hold on me these days. I do still have your read requests in my file and by now you have more than like forgotten what you requested me to read. LOL

What a wonderful write this is and seems to ring with a since of truth. Always a pleasure and I hopefully will be able to return to read more of you real soon.

Merry Christmas,
Lesa

[Norma J. Jessee]

What a sad woeful tale, And the winter setting makes it all the more so.
The child, now grown still living in the childhood home and reliving his memories over and over,
the memories having worn him down with time, just wanting the memories to leave him alone, leave him in peace.
I so agree with Linda Marie, "You should come with a warning "addictive" . But that is what makes a great writer. And you are that and more.