Return to the Light that Failed

The night was dark, in a brooding pall

With thunderheads at its core,

But only the sound of heaving swells

Were heard to break on the shore.

The headland dark where the Lighthouse stood

With not a glimmer of light,

It hadn’t been lit for a hundred years

But a beam would stream that night.

 

The sea was grumbling in its deeps

Cast heaps of weed on the sand,

Much like a drunken Cornishman

Disgorging his contraband,

The swell, built up as the squalls came in

Made the sea erupt from its depths,

Casting an age old Barquentine

Up high, on an angry crest.

 

Shook free from its hundred year old bed

Untangled from miles of weed,

The Barquentine with its forty dead

Had finally now been freed,

A flag that carried the fleur-de-lis

Hung limply down from the mast,

And tangled up in the rigging was

The body of Captain Jacques.

 

An aura shone round the Barquentine

In a pale, blue ghostly light,

Caught in a time warp, in-between

They rose as a man that night.

They gathered up on the rotting deck

Each cannon, covered in rust,

And glared at the lighthouse on the hill,

A light that they couldn’t trust.

 

A wraith of a woman, stood that night

By the keeper, looking down,

The face of a woman, creased in fear

As the Barque had come aground,

She had been the wife of Captain Jacques

Had been left ashore, and fled,

Up to the keeper of the light

Where she shared his meagre bed.

 

‘I didn’t think he’d be back so soon,’

She’d stood by the light, and cried,

‘If he finds us both alone up here

It’s better that we had died.’

The keeper held her trembling form

As the storm built up that night,

‘I’d never allow him to bring you harm,’

He said, as he struck the light.

 

The crew looked up at the Lighthouse

And they heard a woman scream,

From up on the headland, deep in fright

As the keeper lit the beam,

And Jacques looked up, and he saw his wife

Lit up by the sudden light,

‘My God,’ he cried, ‘that’s Jacqueline,

There was infamy that night!’

 

The pair looked down as the men had leapt

To shore, with their swords held high,

They’d waited over a hundred years

But knew that their time was nigh.

He’d struck the light when he saw their ship

Head in to threaten his w***e,

And watched as the ship had broken up

In Eighteen fifty-four.

 

There are nights when the light of former wrongs

Returns to visit the shame,

To balance eternal justice for

The centuries, left in pain,

The ghostly sailors dragged them down

To the Barquentine, at last,

And as the sea had reclaimed the ship

They hung them both from the mast.

 

David Lewis Paget

Reviews

[Colorado Brian]

I have recently read a few books filled with poems from writers who are renowned world wide. I'll admit it, their free-form style - I don't get it. There's no rhythm, nor rhyme, just paragraphs of words. Your style of writing is Great, in my opinion. Vivid, descriptive storytelling. I really enjoy it.

[Dee]

Hi David.
Wonderful rhyme and choice words that bring the clearest of imagery to this ghostly story/poem.. A pleasure to read and review another of your amazing works ...Bravo...Dee

[Tate Morgan]

wonderful wording went into this one you are a man out of time. A hundred years or so i think. But nice to have you round.

[TPK Stories]

A true ghost story...full of horror and eerie romance....

[Marie]

A wonderful, ghostly tale. I love stories about ships and seas. To me, that is romance.