A Ghost, A Girl, A Garret Room

Welcome friends from me, your host
My tale this night concerns a ghost,
A ghost, a girl, a garret room
A tragic tale of love and doom.

The garret room of which I tell
Tops a house where none now dwell,
Dark it's stood for year on year
Its reputation spawned by fear.

Long before its rumour spread
A poor young writer long since dead,
Lived and laboured in that room
Where candle light scarce touched the gloom.

The ceiling sagged above his head
Boards protested at his tread,
Soot rimed paint flaked from the wall
Dust and cobwebs shrouded all.

From his eyrie in the roof
He watched the world, apart, aloof,
Dissecting lives to feed his pen
His own life lived through other men.

Then 'neath his loft new tenants housed
Their eldest child his heart aroused,
With joyous laugh, with quiet grace
With ripe young form and beauteous face.

Eighteen years she'd illumed this world
With dimpled cheeks and long hair curled,
A caring heart, a thoughtful voice
Of suitors she had ample choice.

Beneath her charms the writer fell
A bright young thing, she marked it well,
Her too stern father marked it too
A match like this just would not do!

In wrath he bade they no more meet
His imposition the pair did cheat,
Sweet love they made in that dark room
Sealing thus a darker doom.

Through the door the father leapt
Upon the bed spent lovers slept,
A pistol roared, a muzzle flashed
Onto the sheets one's lifeblood splashed.

Perchance the old man aimed awry
Perhaps he chose which one should die,
It was the girl the bullet struck
Filicide or rank bad luck?

The father hanged afore he'd say
What's certain though on that fell day,
Two lives were cruelly ripped apart
The writer died with shattered heart.

His shade now haunts that loft forlorn
His earthbound soul doth ceaseless mourn,
And none it seems can bear to live
Alongside a ghost who can't forgive.

He suffers none to share the room
Where star-crossed love did briefly bloom,
His spirit roams a crumbling shell
A curséd house where none now dwell.

Farewell friends from me, your host
My tale this night concerned a ghost,
A ghost, a girl, a garret room
A tragic tale of love and doom.

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Copyright DM Pamment 1st September 2011