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