The ever dramatic soul I was (oops correction, that I still am), it was no surprise that I could often parrot-off prose and verse at various theater, extempore, and recitation dos at school. One poem, for which I received top honors, was The Highwayman by Alfred Noyes.
At that time, love was an unfamiliar concept to me, one that I was inclined to scoff at.
Many many years later, I came across a song by Fleetwood Mac, which was picturized on the very same poem.
Both featured a highwayman, heads over heels in love with Bess, the local inn landlord’s daughter, who also reciprocated his passion. One night, as was his wont, he bid adieu to his love, asking her to wait for him till the time he returned with some rich loot. A jealous suitor plays Peeping Tom on the two lovers, and crazed by his own love and envy, tips off the King’s soldiers about the highwayman’s impending return.
The soldiers promptly make their way to the landlord’s inn, drink his ale, and bind and gag Bess to her bed, a rifle tied below her chest. Bess had more matters to be fearful of than the stone-cold muzzle – through her window she could see the road that the highwayman would take, perhaps for the last time.
Twisting and writhing her hands, she was finally able to reach the trigger with one finger. In the dead of the night, the unmistakable sound of a horse's hooves announce her lover approaching her window.
With one fluid stroke she releases the trigger, shattering the peace of the night....
With her death, she gave life to her highwayman, who turned Westward Ho, but who, with the coming of dawn, learnt who it was who warned him with her death.
Morbid? Or achingly sweet?
You decide what the song means to you.
As for me, let me just say that love is not all that unfamiliar an emotion to me now.....
See the video below:
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