THE HIGHWAYMAN
Down the ribbon of moonlight, over the brow of the hill,
The highwayman came riding,
Riding, riding !
The red-coats looked to their priming ! she stood up,
straight and still !
Tlot-tlot, in the frosty silence ! Tlot-tlot, in the echoing
night !
Nearer he came and nearer! Her face was like a light!
Her eyes grew wide for a moment; she drew one last
deep breath,
Then her finger moved in the moonlight,
Her musket shattered the moonlight,
Shattered her breast in the moonlight, and warned
him—with her death. 10
He turned ; he spurred to the Westward ; he did not
know who stood
Bowed, with her head o'er the musket, drenched with
her own red blood !
Not till the dawn he heard it, and slowly blanched to
hear
How Bess, the landlord's daughter,
The landlord's black-eyed daughter,
Had watched for her love in the moonlight, and died
in the darkness there.
Back, he spurred like a madman, shrieking a curse to
the sky,
With the white road smoking behind him and his
rapier brandished high !
Blood-red were his spurs i' the golden noon ; wine-
red was his velvet coat;
When they shot him down on the highway, 20
Down like a dog on the highway :
And he lay in his blood on the highway, with the bunch
of lace at his throat.
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