A Highway Man - In Verse

...and into the dark night he silently ducked,
burdened by the ill gained raiments of a thousand broken hearted feminine souls.
As the wind washed through his thick, water darkened curls he let them go,
one by one, into the night. Into the wind
the storm brought them to itself, until the gently raining sky was
wrapped in the warmth of a myriad of kerchiefs, and then they were gone,
lost in the last darkness of the waning night and the rising steam of a fresh new day.

Into the shadowed window he slipped, not troubled by the fey weather
and unheeding of the consequences of his actions.
While thunder pealed and shook the panes of the windows,
he stood over her, watching, as the breath gently slipped
from her breast whilst she rode across the waves of midnight dreams.
Ungloving his hand, he removed from beneath his jacket
a single rosebud.
And placing it on her pillow he is gone.
Lost in the effervescence of the mist enshrouded night.

It had been there when she woke,
an object not of abstract terror or love
but of tranquility, pinned now to her vestments.
Before her a contingent of faces stared,
troubled by her lack of gaiety.
Troubled by her long face, in this time of pleasant reminiscence.
A man's desire for her acquiescence, a dish gone cold before it touched her lips.
Harried, she removed herself from the gathering,
terrified of the direness of her plight.

Up from the street he sprang, calling to a halt the coach.
In a word and an action he freed a brace of pistols, calling to his intentions,
the attentions of the passengers.
Softly he assures the lady patron of his wish for her wellbeing,
whilst still removing from her a scarf and purloining the coin purses of the wealthy.
Gently still he smiles,
a man both roguish and endearing despite his leveled weapons,
and with a nod and a gesture they are on their way again,
dumbstruck by the gentleman brigand.

Beneath thin, twisted and hoary boughs he sleeps,
protected from the hounds by the scent of fresh blossoms and flowing water.
the winds pass by and drape yellow flower-bedecked branches around him,
shielding him from the eyes of the passers-by.
As the sun sets, he starts up, awakened by the call of night,
and leaving, he makes his way to town, followed by dusky eyes.
Silently he stands in a darkened deadened road,
waiting for the lighted windows of those last to bed to fade to black,
and then his work begins.

A silence pervades from under her door,
candles have burned down, and from within she no longer stirs.
He stands, abject from her warm affections,
disinherited from what is his by right.
Into an ill-lit window's dark recesses he steps,
eyes burning white with hate for whatever stalks quietly the streets below.
The cool grip of metal in his hand,
a portent for the coming end and joyful resolution;
to take back that which the terrible creature had so violently stolen away.

She stood 'gainst the night, enshrined in darkness.
At darkened cobbles and moonlit ways she stares,
pining for an answer, a way out; bidding her night-born lover to spirit her away.
He watches her closely, still clad in formal wear,
waiting to see for what she longs so dearly.
Then in the darkness, from without the shadows steps,
the Highwayman.
His pockets laden with other's bits of precious.
A fleeting glimpse and then he's gone.

Baying dogs called through the dells, singing to the hills of their chase.
Through mired plains and overgrown fens they ran,
ever only just behind the man they pursue;
drawn ever onward by the strange and changing scent
of a thousand different perfumes and the plundered goods he left behind.
Through broken gullies and bracken entangled woods,
still they hound him, ever untiring and stalwart in their goal.
In tangles, briers and thorns they race, ever drawn through the treacherous milieu
His last escape: a self-served stroke, a cynic soul fled to rob them yet

Blank pages of a journal flap in the slight breeze from the open balcony door.
Sunlight plays across the room, cast oddly by a mirror searching for an image to reflect.
Iron railings stand dutifully; a symbol of safety only to those who desire it.
She'd leaped past them, plummeting into the depths of time, eyes no longer fixed on fate.
She lay against a background of roses,
writ on her a face - a look of pity and tragedy; a single scarf clutched in her stony grip.
A sad spirit, lost and forever wandering in bracken-tangled woods and dusky twilit plains.