Pivot were nestled all snug in their beds,
While visions of legal-plums danced in their heads.
And Sam by his bottle, and David, the sap,
Had just ended their game, for an eternal pols nap.

When out on the Hall’s lawn there arose such a clatter,
Why it was Larry from the hedge, with a flask and a platter.
Away to the window Judy flew like a flash,
She tore open the shutters and caught Estelle in mad dash.

The moon on the shadow of the crest-fallen staffer
Gave more rise to the rumors, the lies and the laughter.
When what to our wondering eyes should appear?
But nine shiny new faces and Suzanne near the rear.

With a driver brand new, so vacant and thick,
I knew in a moment, this man and his bricks.
Swifter than sickles some coursers they came,
And he whistled, and shouted, and called them by name!

“Now Heather! now, Timmer! now, Raymond, now Geoffer!
On, ‘Drea! On, Georgie!, on Kerry; but not Sir Geller!”
Right to the top of the good Captain’s statue!
And off to the very top of this weary old Hall!
Now tax to death! Make them pay! Blow away all!”

As dry leaves that before the wild hurricane fly,
When the day of Marx breaks, debt will mount to the sky.
So up to the Hall-top the coursers they flew,
With the sleigh full of pain, and St. Gregor too.

Then I heard over the sound of my black velvet heels
The rolling and creaking of four little wheels.
As I drew my head up, from my red book and gray smoke,
I was worried about the fire, I’d just finally stoked
I was startled, and fast, was turned all around,
Down my chimney old Sam came, with a thunderous bound.

“You wouldn’t believe what’s happened, citizen…the Hall”
“A new team has consumed it, a terrible pall”
“So I thought I’d come over and pour me a drink”
“Before someone came calling, to take me by wink”

He was dressed to the nines in one of Colin’s old furs,
All that was missing was a ten-gallon and some shiny star spurs
But those wheels were all tarnished, from three years he made moot
As he dusted right off from the thick flowing soot
A bundle of tired tricks he had flung with his hack,
He confessed to the target on poor Peter’s back.

His eyes-how they twinkled! His face-pleats were merry!
To rewrite the finish, and weave dreams like a fairy
He told me he felt badly of the three more lost years,
The suffering, the lying, the great fall and the jeers

But suddenly his cheeks grew pale, like those of a ghost,
When he discovered he was in hell, with an unlikely host
His droll little mouth sank, like the beak on a beaten crow,
When I foretold of the Fourth Horseman, that one day he’d soon know.

“Why me, why me!” he bellowed, at last,
“I’m innocent please, it all happened so fast..”
In the heat of the fire, that made pale Sam weaker,
He realized his fate, was soon to get bleaker

“Oh no…it’s you, I remember that scowl!”
As I beckoned the fire, this fool, and his howl
“How can I forget…the shape of your face?!”
“Oh, why should fate bring me, to this time and place!”

And then I thought, of Sam’s wee contrition,
As middling theatre; a contrived apparition
He begged me back, to save his old soul
“Save me once more, for the lies and their toll!”

But I couldn’t, I wouldn’t, this town that I gave
“It was yours to hold, to have and to save”
“I promise your end Sam, will not come from just me”
“The others appear first, and then me after three”

Sam bowed his head slowly and started to cry
For the city, it’s people and his failed, futile try
“There was never a day, that I didn’t want better”
“I failed from the top, and the days, they grew wetter”

I spoke not a word, but went straight to my work,
He looked at me knotting, with so nervous a smirk.
“You promised”, he said “That one day I’d pay”
“I laughed at you, taunted you, and all went astray”

Not far in the distance the sound of cold hoof,
“It’s now time Sam for you, to say goodbye from the roof”
His tears suddenly stopped, as a matter of course
The torment was near, of the final pale horse

He was hung from the cross, at its base, on the steeple
For those he made dead, and the living of people
It was he that delivered these darkest of days,
With his empty, unguarded, right fanciful ways

So, poor Peter will fade in glimmering light,
Sainted he be for his dignified fight
And all that is left of the once greatest city.
Are the memories long past and our aggregate pity.

TM