Children of the Night

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.