State: CA
     Country: USA

NEWTON STEWART You asked me, Shay, to spin a yarn    before your ears do chill, so since the seas are calm tonight,    and you seem eager still . . . We'll count my tally, this tale be true,    as all true stories go-- I'll tell you, friend, about a lass    that swept clean through my soul. I bought a sloop, the "Thompsonpass",    and from Kinnaird's Head did sail. For years along the Moray Firth,    I delivered up the mail. At the Greenman's Pub in Kelvingrove,    that's where I met Lenore; her father owned the tavern there    and lands to the western shore. Black hair, blue eyes, a winsome smile--    no slimmer craft there be; I drew her from father's door,    and she sailed away with me. At Creebridge House in Wigtownshire    we dusted down through life; three children raised--now grown and gone,    along with family strife. Fair haired Edie was the first to fly,    her braids in Bill Durk's hands; then Eric with his staves and hoops    in the cooperage trade did land. Maude, sweet Maude, our serious child    to black Ireland's shores did flee; a schoolmarm and a spinster still--    no grandfather she'll make me. Aye, we tasted from our fingertips    the salty Northern Sea, but cold and damp a damned wind blew    between my love and me. I breathed a sigh and held her tight,    she took a step or two, then turned and cried--"I'll love you, Newt,    whatever we go through!" Lenore, my wife of thirty years    went sickly on the vine; she died of fever from the pox,    and passed before her time. So my love, like no other love,    left me alone and free; no, not of my own choosing,    for changelings are but we. Copyright © Donald Somersett 2000

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