King George's Men

He did not come in the dawning

He did not come at noon

And out of the tawny sunset

Before the rise of the moon

When the road was a gypsy's ribbon looping the purple moor

A redcoat troop came marching

Marching, marching

King george's men came marching, up to the old inn-door

They said no word to the landlord

They drank his ale instead

But they gagged his daughter

And bound her to the foot of her narrow bed

Two of them knelt at her casement, with muskets at their side

There was death at every window

And hell at one dark window

For bess could see, through her casement

The road that he would ride

They had tied her up to attention

With many a sniggering jest

They had bound a musket beside her

With the muzzle beneath her breast

Now keep good watch, and they kissed her

She heard the doomed man say

Look for me by moonlight

Watch for me by moonlight

I'll come to thee by moonlight, though hell should bar the way

She twisted her hands behind her

But all the knots held good

She writhed her hands till her fingers

Were wet with sweat or blood

They stretched and strained in the darkness

And the hours crawled by like years

Till, now, on the stroke of midnight

Cold, on the stroke of midnight

The tip of one finger touched it, the trigger at least was hers

The tip of one finger touched it

She strove no more for the rest

Up, she stood to attention

With the muzzle beneath her breast

She would not risk their hearing, she would not strive again

For the road lay bare in the moonlight

Blank and bare in the moonlight

And the blood in her veins in the moonlight

Throbbed to her love's refrain

Tlot tlot, tlot tlot! Had they heard it?

The horse-hooves ringing clear

Tlot tlot, tlot tlot, in the distance

Were they deaf that they did not hear?

Down the ribbon of moonlight, over the brow of the hill

The highwayman came riding

Riding, riding

The redcoats 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

He turned, he spurred to the west

He did not know who stood

Bowed, with her head o'er the musket

Drenched with her own red blood

Not till the dawn did he hear it, and his face grew grey 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 in the golden noon

Wine-red was his velvet coat

When they shot him down on the highway

Down like a dog in the highway

And he lay in his blood on the highway

With the bunch of lace at his throat