Saving Grace Poem by David Lewis Paget

I got the call at eleven o’clock,
‘They want you to dig a grave! ’
It wasn’t such a terrible shock,
The message came by a knave.
A serving man from the House of Gull,
That mansion up on the hill,
Where Baron Downz kept his hunting hounds
And the beautiful Grace de Ville.

They often sent me a midnight call
To dig them a grave or two,
Whenever there was a duel fought,
For graves, well, that’s what I do!
I dig them deep in the dead of night
At the edge of the Forest Clare,
They pay me a hundred and fifty crowns
You wouldn’t know they were there.

For only I know the resting place
Of the Lords that fell by his sword,
Of every man that has tried his will
Each one that questioned his word.
The Baron’s known for his bloody mind
And revenge is his only skill,
He gets them drunk on his German wine
And then moves in for the kill.

He murdered the father of Grace de Ville
Then kept her there as his prize,
The night that he tried to have his will
She almost scratched out his eyes,
He keeps her bound by a silver chain
With a lock that tethers her wrist,
And swears she’ll only be free again
When her maidenhead is his.

The servants told me he paced the hall
With his patience growing thin,
He’d rage and roar when she locked the door
To prevent him getting in,
There was tumult up in the hall that night
So I knew that there may be blood,
I took my shovel and lantern out
And began to dig by the wood.

At three o’clock in the morning they
Arrived in the horse-drawn hearse,
Slid a coffin out of the back
And laid it down on the turf.
The Baron Downz rode his horse around
And peered in the empty grave,
‘A fitting place for the maidenhead
Milady’s so keen to save! ’

I felt the chill running up my spine,
It raised the hairs on my neck,
Surely he couldn’t be so unkind,
But the coffin lay on the deck,
The Baron motioned them all away
And they left with the coal black hearse,
He watched me lower the coffin in
Then turned away with a curse.

‘Be sure to cover that coffin well, ’
He snarled as he turned to go,
Tossed me a hundred and fifty crowns
Then ambled off, real slow.
I heard a thump in the coffin then
And my heart jumped into my throat,
A muffled whimper, down in the ground
And a scream on a rising note.

I knew my life would hang by a thread
If the Baron came back around,
But still I thought, I’d rather be dead
Than bury de Ville in the ground.
I clambered into that terrible grave
And prised off the coffin lid,
She gasped, and thanked the lord she was saved,
But then came a note of dread.

‘You play me false, you’ll pay with your life, ’
The Baron stood looking down,
And then he began to unsheathe his sword,
The shovel was still in the ground,
I turned the shovel blade side up
And thrust it under his chin
We clambered out of that open grave
And swiftly tumbled him in.

I work for the Lady Grace de Ville
In her livery, red and gold,
I’ve not been asked for a single grave,
Nor ever will be, I’m told,
I take her out in the coach and four
To ride by the Forest Clare,
And run right over the Baron’s grave
Whenever we’re passing there.

5 January 2014