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<div style="background:#fff;border:#bbb dashed 1px;padding:5px"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=365978" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none"><div style="margin:10px 0"><strong>The Return of Jonathon Grise</strong></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=365978" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">I stood on the porch<br>Like one in a daze, <br>And stared at the oak panelled door, <br>She'd shut it so quietly, there, in my face<br>That I just couldn't take it on board.<br>Her face was composed, but determined I knew, <br>Dismissive, but what could it mean? <br>The wedding we'd planned for the Spring was no more<br>Said the love of my life, Annie Deane! </a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=365978" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">I stumbled on out<br>In the gathering gloom, <br>And winter crawled into my heart, <br>The night was a portent of shadows and doom<br>As an owl fluttered past in the dark, <br>Storm clouds were filling the evening sky<br>And the wind set its wail in the trees, <br>The name of a monster was echoed out there, <br>The name of one, Jonathon Grise! </a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=365978" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">He'd come to the village <br>On just such a night, <br>Had stopped at the old village Inn, <br>The brim of his hat hid his face from the sight<br>Of the publican, signing him in, <br>He had an old trunk that he dragged to his room, <br>A magical symbol on top, <br>The publican smelt some old incense he burned<br>So he went up, and told him to stop.</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=365978" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">I never was told<br>What was said when he knocked, <br>The publican staggered back down, <br>His face and his hair had turned grey, so they say, <br>When asked, the old man had just frowned.<br>He never said anything more on the case, <br>But bowed when he passed, to keep peace, <br>I sensed something evil, unclean in the man<br>That we all knew as Jonathon Grise.</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=365978" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">He never went out<br>In the daytime, we knew, <br>But pottered about in the dark, <br>His cloak would be seen flaring out in the wind<br>As he strode through the trees in the park, <br>He bought the old cottage that stood by the shore<br>Moved in, with a rottweiler hound, <br>We dared not approach, or the dog would come out, <br>Bare its teeth, and start sniffing around.</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=365978" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">He was watched by the locals, <br>But never approached, <br>And he never spoke to a soul, <br>He seemed quite content on his own in the dark<br>When the nights were both clammy and cold.<br>Then one foggy night I saw Widow McLean<br>Walking down to his house from the fells, <br>She walked in a daze, and her eyes, they were glazed<br>As she carried her basket of spells.</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=365978" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">Long thought to be harmless, <br>A lonely old witch, <br>She knocked at his door in the gloom, <br>Then entered and stayed for an hour or more<br>Concocting her spells in his room, <br>I asked how she knew him, the mystery man <br>On the following day in the square, <br>She shivered, looked frightened, and held up one hand, <br>'I never was... never was there! '</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=365978" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">Barely a month had<br>Gone by since the gloom<br>Of rejection had landed on me, <br>The heart that had loved had turned into a tomb<br>For the love that had set us both free.<br>Then rumours were whispered that in the Great Hall<br>The banns had been read and released, <br>The banns for the wedding of my Annie Deane<br>With that horror called Jonathon Grise! </a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=365978" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">My mind couldn't take it, <br>I tore at my hair, <br>I ripped at my coat and my shirt, <br>I drank a whole bottle of whisky off straight<br>In the hopes it would kill off the hurt, <br>I wondered how long since the two of them met, <br>And drunkenly swore my revenge, <br>I set off to squeeze all the truth from the throat<br>Of the visiting Widow from Henge.</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=365978" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">She screamed when she saw me<br>Burst in through her door, <br>I looked like a figure from hell, <br>What spell had she cast there for Jonathon Grise? <br>She finally said she would tell.<br>'The man is pure evil, I met him before, <br>I met him before you were born, <br>He came on the night of a westerly gale, <br>Cast out from a Barque in the storm.'</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=365978" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">'I think he deserted, <br>He wore seaman's clothes, <br>He never went back to the sea, <br>He married a woman, and left her in child, <br>A woman you'll never believe! '<br>'Just try me, ' I snarled, 'so he's done it before, <br>And now thinks he'll do it again! '<br>'Ah yes, but that happened when I was a child, <br>I couldn't have been more than ten! '</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=365978" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">I stopped in my tracks<br>And I looked at her face, <br>The Widow was wrinkled and old, <br>She must have been seventy-seven or eight, <br>I felt all my innards run cold.<br>'You must be mistaken, this Jonathon Grise<br>Must only be thirty or so...'<br>'The man is the same, ' said the Widow, 'his name<br>Is the Sailor Who Never Grows Old.'</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=365978" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">I sat for a moment<br>To gather my thoughts, <br>'You say that he married close by? '<br>'Ah yes, that he did, but the woman he wed, <br>In the churchyard, now, she lies! '<br>'Just tell me her name and I'll leave you in peace, '<br>I replied, with a portent of fear, <br>'Her name was Helene, and the child Richard Deane, <br>Your Annie's Great Grandfather, dear! '</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=365978" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">I dropped like a thunderbolt<br>Onto the hearth, <br>I couldn't stand up for my life, <br>The devil had spawned the Great Grandfather<br>Of the woman he'd have for his wife.<br>My heart, it burst, and a thousand tears<br>Came flooding from deep within, <br>There must be a way to send Jonathon Grise<br>Back down to the devil's kiln.</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=365978" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">I sat with the Widow<br>For thirteen days, <br>We read every spell in her book, <br>On the morning before Annie's wedding bells rang<br>She tossed all her charms in the brook.<br>'You said he deserted a ship once, at sea, <br>Do you have a drowned sailors spell? '<br>Her eyes had gleamed, old Widow McLean<br>As she lifted a caul from the well.</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=365978" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">That night the moon<br>Stayed in, and hid, <br>The stars, they gave up their lease, <br>A mist came rolling on in from the sea<br>To the cottage of Jonathon Grise, <br>A groaning and creaking of timbers and masts<br>And the plash of the oars then grew, <br>The longboats, sent from the ghostly Barque<br>Rowed in with a ghostly crew.</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=365978" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">They dragged him swearing<br>Away to the beach, <br>He cursed at the Barquentine, <br>They threw him into a longboat there, <br>And then he began to scream, <br>I watched as the ghostly sailing ship<br>Hove to in the rising swell, <br>While Jonathon hung from the yardarm there<br>At last, on his way to Hell.</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=365978" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">28 January 2009</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br /></a><a href="http://poems.citatepedia.com/">poem</a> by <strong><a rel="author" href="http://authors.citatepedia.com/by.php?a=David+Lewis+Paget">David Lewis Paget</a></strong></div>