Yet, if they press me sharply, and harry me through the day, Then look for me by moonlight, Watch for me by moonlight, I'll come to thee by moonlight, though hell should bar the way." VI He rose upright in the stirrups; he scarce could reach her hand, But she loosened her hair i' the casement! His face burnt like a brand As the black cascade of perfume came tumbling over his breast; (Oh, sweet black waves in the moonlight!) Then he tugged at his rein in the moonlight, and galloped away to the West. PART TWO I He did not come in the dawning; he did not come at noon; Marching-marching King George's men came marching, up to the old inn-door. II They said no word to the landlord, they drank his ale instead, But they gagged his daughter and bound her to the foot of her narrow bed; Two of them knelt at her casement, with muskets at their side! There was death at every window; And hell at one dark window; For Bess could see throuch her casement, the road that he would ride. III They had tied her up to attention, with many a sniggering jest; They had bound a musket beside her, with the barrel beneath her breast! "Now keep good watch!" and they kissed her. She heard the dead man say Look for me by moonlight; Watch for me by moonlight; I'll come to thee by moonlight, though hell should bar the way! IV She twisted her hands behind her; but all the knots held good! She writhed her hands till her fingers were wet with sweat or blood! They stretched and strained in the darkness, and the hours crawled by like years, Till now, on the stroke of midnight, Cold on the stroke of midnight, The tip of one finger touched it! The trigger at least was hers! The tip of one finger touched it; she strove no more for the rest! Up, she stood to attention, with the barrel beneath her breast, She would not risk their hearing; she would not strive again; For the road lay bare in the moonlight; Blank and bare in the moonlight; And the blood of her veins in the moonlight throbbed to her love's refrain. VI Tlot-tlot; tlot-tlot! ringing clear; Had they heard it? The horse-hoofs Tlot-tlot, tlot-tlot, in the distance? Were they deaf that they did not hear? Down the ribbon of moonlight, over the brow of the hill, Riding, riding! The red-coats looked to their priming! She stood up, straight and still! VII Tlot-tlot, in the echoing Tlot-tlot, in the frosty silence! night! Nearer he came and nearer! Her face was like a light! Her eyes grew wide for a moment; she drew one last deep breath, Then her finger moved in the moonlight, Her musket shattered the moonlight, Shattered her breast in the moonlight and warned him-with her death. VIII He turned; he spurred to the West; he did not know who stood Bówed, with her head o'er the musket, drenched with her own red blood! Not till the dawn he heard it, his face grew grey to hear How Bess, the landlord's daughter, The landlord's black-eyed daughter, Had watched for her love in the moonlight, and died in the darkness there. IX Back, he spurred like a madman, shrieking a curse to the sky, With the white road smoking behind him and his rapier brandished high! Blood-red were his spurs i' the golden noon; wine-red was his velvet coat, When they shot him down on the highway, Down like a dog on the highway, And he lay in his blood on the highway, with the bunch of lace at his throat. And still of a winter's night, they say, when the wind is in the trees, When the moon is a ghostly galleon tossed upon cloudy seas, When the road is a ribbon of moonlight over the purple moor, A highwayman comes riding Riding-riding A highwayman comes riding, up to the old inn-door. ΧΙ Over the cobbles he clatters and clangs in the dark inn-yard; He taps with his whip on the shutters, but all is locked and barred; He whistles a tune to the window, and who should be waiting there But the landlord's black-eyed daughter, Bess, the landlord's daughter, Plaiting a dark red love-knot into her long black hair. Alfred Noyes (1880- ) CHAPTER VII THE SONNET A Sonnet is a moment's monument,- To one dead deathless hour. Look that it be, As Day or Night may rule; and let time see A Sonnet is a coin: its face reveals The soul, its converse, to what Power 'tis due:- Of Life, or dower in Love's high retinue, It serve: or, 'mid the dark wharf's cavernous breath, Dante Gabriel Rossetti (1828-1882) ALTHOUGH primitive poetry was largely spontaneous and more or less irregular, skill provoked emulation, poets soon followed models, and many fixed stanzaic forms eventually became established. In like manner at a later period whole poems came to be modeled on certain structural patterns, the chief features of which were uniformity in meter, in rime, in the number of lines, and, sometimes, in the use of a refrain. Great poems have as a rule been of simple structure, but the greatest poets have often, for some of their compositions, delighted in |