31. The Tavern

WHENEVER I go by there nowadays

And look at the rank weeds and the strange grass,

The torn blue curtains and the broken glass,

I seem to be afraid of the old place;

And something stiffens up and down my face,

For all the world as if I saw the ghost

Of old Ham Amory, the murdered host,

With his dead eyes turned on me all aglaze.

The Tavern has a story, but no man

Can tell us what it is. We only know

That once long after midnight, years ago,

A stranger galloped up from Tilbury Town,

Who brushed, and scared, and all but overran

That skirt-crazed reprobate, John Evereldown.