The Garden Of Helen De Grues Poem by David Lewis Paget

She'd bought the old McWilliams place
In the Valley of Compère,
After McWilliams hanged himself
In an orgy of despair,
The Banks were ripe to foreclose on him
When his stocks went through the floor,
And he shot and wounded the bailiff
Nailing the notice to his door.

She got the place for a snap, they said,
Knocked down to the only bid,
The neighbours went to the auction just
To see what the stranger did,
One finger up at the starting price
And she stared the sniggers down,
A South American beauty, she
Was new to our border town.

The weather was hot and sultry as
It was at that time of year,
More humid down in the valley, too
Uncomfortable living there,
We wondered whether she knew just what
She'd bought, it wasn't the views,
Old Mac had planted all carnivores
She found, did Helen de Grues.

The place was a tropical stew down there
But there wasn't a single fly,
With all of the Venus fly-traps there
They came and they saw, to die,
The river meandered past her place
But mosquito's were nowhere around,
For all of the pesky insects there
That place was a killing ground.

We thought that she'd rip them out, but no,
She added a thousand more,
Brought species from South America that
We'd not even heard of before,
There were pitfall traps like you've never seen
And they grew like steam in the heat,
And they took small birds and reptiles when
They'd not had enough to eat.

The Mayor called on Helen de Grues
To tell her the latest spin,
The council was seizing half of her land,
And putting a highway in,
She fought like a savage tigress,
Took the councillors all to court,
‘You're far too late, ' said the magistrate,
‘You should have checked on what you'd bought! '

The plans allowed for an easement, they
Could do with it what they would,
And a highway down to Disaster Bay
Was planned, submitted, approved,
But Helen put a good face on it,
Invited the councillors down,
She put on a spread, on the land where they said
They would rip her plants from the ground.

The councillors never went back again,
Most of them never got home,
The giant Nepenthes saw to that
As they stripped each one to the bone,
The Mayor was lost by the river bank,
She said he couldn't be sillier,
‘It wasn't a plant, ' said Helen de Grues,
‘But a giant Crocodilia! '