Gimmerton Chapel
I.
The chiming of the chapel clock in the cold
Rings out across Gimmerton and the moors,
From our bedroom you can see the glint of gold
Of the belltower, and the ornate wooden doors,
And the bricks that uphold the Lord’s doing,
From his house, you see only a new Hell brewing.
II.
I kneel before Him, and ask for his blessing for her
Pallid and limp in the bed, on the edge of death,
I pray for my love, my temperamental summer,
My hope from whom joy is brought with every breath,
Limp in the bed, the prison where she is chained,
Vivid eyes dullened, lively nature restrained.
III.
Oh, if she were to go, I would be but a shell!
My mistress, she means the earth to me,
To imagine a fireless Grange in which to dwell
Does not bear to thrive in mind, nor body.
The grey stone blocks, cold as the winter air,
Comfort me, knowledge that the Lord is there.
IV.
Earnest that the Lord hath heard my cry,
The path back to home – back to her – beckon,
With a wintry passion doth the wind blow by,
And livelier times I remember each second.
The proposal accepted, the honest wedding,
The honest first night, the first change of bedding.
V.
There were less simple moments that I also recall -
The first slap of violence, an uncouth first meeting,
But the memory of her beauty at the first ball
And the first kiss remain, however fleeting,
Whilst the injury of the rogue who knew her before,
Had faded, until the unwelcome reappearance at my door.
VI.
Dim light seeps through the cracked panes
As the Grange welcomes home its erstwhile master,
The servants wear countenances of pain,
Was she snatched from the earth as I saw the pastor?
Hath she gone to Heaven, with rose-bud cheeks?
Hath she been sacrificed, her body tender and weak?
VII.
I must see her face once more, lest I weep,
My darling has been taken, our legacy is not to be,
I dread to think of her laying in eternal sleep,
But her pain is no more and her immortality
Is beautiful to behold, and one day I shall share
In the afterlife too – one day, I will be there.
VIII.
A wailing from the upper floors arrests my ears
Its shrillness stops my heart and my hopeful belief,
It is the maid’s – I accept my overwhelming fears
She has gone. I take to the stairs to hide my grief,
And in the room where I presume a morgue is made
In an embrace, my darling and her rogue, beside the maid.
IX.
The candles in the chapel held a sacred spell
Over me – I believed that my love for her would conquer fate,
And at the ringing of the eleventh hour’s bell,
I thought that my love would through Heaven wait
For her devoted spouse, her nurse, her charmed amour,
But a gypsy who deserted her she does adore.
X.
Oh, Catherine! I waited through the starry nights,
Wretched tired ’til my eyes drooped, but they never fell!
Even when you muttered in your sleep about the Heights,
I loved you without reason or limit, and you give me hell!
You clutch him and scream like I do you wrong,
By loving you, with unbearable passion, deep and strong.
XI.
His smug glance, he knows not what I’ve endured,
His torture and fire he brought upon his coward self,
A flight to London hath his poverty cured,
But he torments her so, and ravages her health,
And yet I, who held her through the tumultous eves,
Kept her here, on this earth, made sure she still breathed.
XII.
Her form slumps – she is dead, she is dead!
The rogue has killed her, he has driven her mad,
The last vestiges of her passion hath been bled!
He is a demon, why, he is even black-clad!
And he orders me about in my own house,
He, the devil, who hath corrupted my beloved spouse.
XIII.
My Catherine! Oh, I would that I lay with you,
On the bed where your deceitful waxen face is turned,
And your lifeless figure that never loved me true,
Is limp in the room in which my passion burned,
For all the wealth in the world, it cannot be fair,
That my love was so powerful, and yet she did not care.
The chiming of the chapel clock in the cold
Rings out across Gimmerton and the moors,
From our bedroom you can see the glint of gold
Of the belltower, and the ornate wooden doors,
And the bricks that uphold the Lord’s doing,
From his house, you see only a new Hell brewing.
II.
I kneel before Him, and ask for his blessing for her
Pallid and limp in the bed, on the edge of death,
I pray for my love, my temperamental summer,
My hope from whom joy is brought with every breath,
Limp in the bed, the prison where she is chained,
Vivid eyes dullened, lively nature restrained.
III.
Oh, if she were to go, I would be but a shell!
My mistress, she means the earth to me,
To imagine a fireless Grange in which to dwell
Does not bear to thrive in mind, nor body.
The grey stone blocks, cold as the winter air,
Comfort me, knowledge that the Lord is there.
IV.
Earnest that the Lord hath heard my cry,
The path back to home – back to her – beckon,
With a wintry passion doth the wind blow by,
And livelier times I remember each second.
The proposal accepted, the honest wedding,
The honest first night, the first change of bedding.
V.
There were less simple moments that I also recall -
The first slap of violence, an uncouth first meeting,
But the memory of her beauty at the first ball
And the first kiss remain, however fleeting,
Whilst the injury of the rogue who knew her before,
Had faded, until the unwelcome reappearance at my door.
VI.
Dim light seeps through the cracked panes
As the Grange welcomes home its erstwhile master,
The servants wear countenances of pain,
Was she snatched from the earth as I saw the pastor?
Hath she gone to Heaven, with rose-bud cheeks?
Hath she been sacrificed, her body tender and weak?
VII.
I must see her face once more, lest I weep,
My darling has been taken, our legacy is not to be,
I dread to think of her laying in eternal sleep,
But her pain is no more and her immortality
Is beautiful to behold, and one day I shall share
In the afterlife too – one day, I will be there.
VIII.
A wailing from the upper floors arrests my ears
Its shrillness stops my heart and my hopeful belief,
It is the maid’s – I accept my overwhelming fears
She has gone. I take to the stairs to hide my grief,
And in the room where I presume a morgue is made
In an embrace, my darling and her rogue, beside the maid.
IX.
The candles in the chapel held a sacred spell
Over me – I believed that my love for her would conquer fate,
And at the ringing of the eleventh hour’s bell,
I thought that my love would through Heaven wait
For her devoted spouse, her nurse, her charmed amour,
But a gypsy who deserted her she does adore.
X.
Oh, Catherine! I waited through the starry nights,
Wretched tired ’til my eyes drooped, but they never fell!
Even when you muttered in your sleep about the Heights,
I loved you without reason or limit, and you give me hell!
You clutch him and scream like I do you wrong,
By loving you, with unbearable passion, deep and strong.
XI.
His smug glance, he knows not what I’ve endured,
His torture and fire he brought upon his coward self,
A flight to London hath his poverty cured,
But he torments her so, and ravages her health,
And yet I, who held her through the tumultous eves,
Kept her here, on this earth, made sure she still breathed.
XII.
Her form slumps – she is dead, she is dead!
The rogue has killed her, he has driven her mad,
The last vestiges of her passion hath been bled!
He is a demon, why, he is even black-clad!
And he orders me about in my own house,
He, the devil, who hath corrupted my beloved spouse.
XIII.
My Catherine! Oh, I would that I lay with you,
On the bed where your deceitful waxen face is turned,
And your lifeless figure that never loved me true,
Is limp in the room in which my passion burned,
For all the wealth in the world, it cannot be fair,
That my love was so powerful, and yet she did not care.