The Gravedigger
I was leaning on my shovel, in a hole
As black as pitch,
With a plug of fine tobacco in my pipe
To scratch my itch,
But I hadn't even lit it when
I heard the voices clear,
'You'll be married on the morrow,
We'll be rich within the year! '
I sat down and there I rested at the
Bottom of the grave
I'd been digging for a friend of mine,
Whose life I'd tried to save,
I could see the figures dimly, talking,
Plotting in the dark,
Then they kissed, and he went one way
While she tripped across the park.
It was not that they were strangers;
Her I knew as Anne Morrell,
And she cut a pretty figure with
Her bustle and her veil,
While the man was Terence Morgan,
He was just a local lout,
But he had a way with women, 'til
They found the beggar out!
So I clambered out the hole, and made
My way into the church,
And I looked for where the banns were posted,
There, inside the porch,
I saw that Ann Morrell was set
To marry Graham Pugh...
The local Ironmonger who
Was known as 'well-to-do.'
He was more than well-to-do, I thought,
He owned a string of shops,
And he sent goods to the colonies,
In fair exchange for crops,
His house was like a mansion in
Our tiny little town,
Where it sat up on the hill, where he
Could stand, and look on down.
So his bride-to-be was plotting, she was
Marrying for greed,
She had worked on Graham Pugh,
Worked on his loneliness and need,
He was in his middle forties,
[...] Read more
poem by David Lewis Paget
Added by Poetry Lover
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