A Penny from the Poison Well (Abandoned)

Was going to be a longer, story poem about a chimney sweep who falls in love with a mistreated servant girl at a house he's visited several times for work, and his resolve to set her free by any means

A Penny from the Poison Well

 

I

‘Should e’er this letter come to light,

Suppose I might have met my end.

Forgive the charcoal on the page--

A life in cages colored them:

My fingers, face, and e’en my heart;

And though I start this paltry will

In quiet commune with the clock,

The peace will not, my temper, still.

For here, in this decrepit shell

Of living Hell (a house, no more),

I’ve seen the specters all align

Like stars that shine to shake the floor.

And though I’ve nothing left to give,

But life to live (so goes the trade),

I’ve passed too often through these doors

With feelings hoarded for the grave

That intuition tells me, clear,

Is coming near; and like the man

Of avarice for pretty things

Who feels the sting of Father’s hand

And realizes all too late

That nothing great was meant to be

Embezzled to the afterlife,

And sees how trifling were his deeds;

How selfish did I hide away

The words I’d say--that now I write

In this, The Will of Chimney Sweep;

That if you read, at least I’ve died

With nothing left inside me but

These soot-filled lungs.  The shackles of

Our many bridled communes, past,

Are gone, at last; and like a dove

Returning with a single leaf,

I see the freedom we so lack;

But like the raven stains I wear,

My heart despairs that coming back

Is something I may never do

To say to you…--but even now

In this, my humble legacy,

I cling to these, all silent vows--

For, like the Poison Muse I’ve heard,

I know that words may still a heart;

And if my life, here, truly ends,

My hope is in that yours will start.’

He lay his coal-stained fingers down

When came a sound upon the door;

Her lady was enquiring

If he would be a moment more?

He begged for one, or two, at least,

If she would please (and she supposed);

And so the words, like ravens, flew:

‘Recall the beauty of the rose…’

 

II

The lady of our residence--

In every sense, a Havisham

(But jilted just a little late:

To ‘spire hate for every man)--

Stood waiting in a sitting room

Of darkest hues, with hands so clasped;

How gloomy was the air above;

How somber was her countenance

That didn’t change when he appeared--

Our sable, queer, poor chimney sweep;

But hardened, like her frigid stare.

She pointed where the flames should be

And said ‘You know your business here--

You interfere by taking long;

And steal my hours of repose--

But so it goes…’ and on, and on,

Until her slaking dudgeon fell

Upon the bell she kept within;

And moments, hence, the maid arrived

To live or die by Lady’s whim.

‘There is a parch I can’t abide,’

The Lady sighed, and, loftily,

She waved aside the pretty maid--

A scene that played unfittingly

For one so fair.  The sweep perceived

Her falter at the Lady’s boon,

But turn; and soon they were relieved

Of all a knowing eye should say

Defied the gray, like falling star

That burns through seas of overcast,

But never lasts--but leaves a scar.

Now, heavy, did the silence loom

(To match the gloom), while Lady viewed

The choking flue with distant eye,

Like passersby a lonely funeral;

Which image called to mind

The most unkind of prophecies

That every Sweep is meant to ‘fil,

Whose line will make them memories.

Out of the grey, a softened sound:

A bell announced the hour twelve.

The Lady, waking from her trance,

Then turned askance, and to a shelf

Beside the choking flue, upon

The paragon of mantles, made

(No lack, our Lady would permit

To enter this lofty estate),

And took a parcel, unaddressed--

Applied a messy signature,

And gave it to the sable Sweep,

But not to keep: ‘It is like her

To disregard her duties, sworn--

How she has worn my patience so!

And now she dawdles with my tea--

Bring that to me; and tell her go

And meet the carriage at the turn

Or she will earn another round!’

The Sweep, though burdened by the rood

Of Lady’s mood, he quickly found

The sitting room to close behind

And turned his mind toward the task

(And counted up his lucky stars

Like trolley cars upon a track

No engineer of storied name

Could better lay; and watched them run

In fantasy, until the end

Awakened him, and spurred him on).

----

(a few lines that would have fit into the poem at a later point)

This house will never be a home.’

‘It’s all I’ve known,’ the maid replied.

‘I’ve never known the grip of fear--

There’s nothing here from which to hide.’

All this, she said as through a grin

That, stretched too thin, revealed the lie

She lived--that she believed, herself--

That no one else had ever tried

To disillusion from her mind,

But let it bind her like a soul--

As if the ghost of this old house

Was burning out: and she, the coal

That kept the tired flames alive…

***

Love is not a scripted thing--

It’s ever been an accident

***

Look how brightly shines the rose

That freely grows…

***

‘It’s best to be prepared,’ he thought--

Not once, but oft, in all his days--

A penny from the poison well

May never quell, but still, it pays.

***

…and ran toward the sea of flames

That he who named her wouldn’t drown

In the end, the chimney sweep would have somehow construed a fire to burn the house to the ground with himself and the owner inside--he considered his own life lost due to the trade he'd been forced into as a boy and thought the only way the maid would be freed was if the cage that held her was no more, and he considered the house and the owner to make that cage. The beginning lines and the rest of his letter to her would serve as a confession to his determination, and he'd give it to her with instructions to not read it until she was far away (having been sent to town on some errand). But it wouldn't work out quite as well as the sweep hoped. The maid, seeing the flames, would rush home, and as the last lines above suggest, she'd throw herself into the fire to save 'he who named her.' Although the poem says the maid belongs to a 'Lady', I meant to change that to a man. That man would have given her a name after taking her into service, but the sweep had also given her a name, so I meant for a little ambiguity in who it was she meant to save, if not both of them. Anyway, I liked the idea of this one but lost steam on it and doubt I can ever do any more with it than this.

Author's Note

As the title says, it's unfinished and abandoned. Read the note at the end for a little indication of how the poem would have resolved.