Can you name the poem and the author?

March 7, 2005 12:37 PM

The poem involves a war-time scenario (perhaps Revolutionary War) with a wife being accosted and probably raped by the enemy in her own home. Her husband is away in the war.

The enemy either rigs a strange device where if she moves she gets shot by a rifle...or something akin to that. She hears her husband coming up the road and in an attempt to alert him to the danger, shoots herself. This poem was found in an American History textbook. It might have connotations with midnight and the moon. Any help is appreciated.

posted by dagnyscott to writing & language (8 comments total)

It's called "The Highway Man"--and it's not her husband, but her lover. I'll try to dig up a link...
posted by handful of rain at 12:40 PM on March 7, 2005

The Highwayman
posted by handful of rain at 12:42 PM on March 7, 2005

Loreena McKennitt does a very beautiful and eerie performance of The Highway Man. You can hear a clip here if that's of interest to you.
posted by nelleish at 1:36 PM on March 7, 2005

Or if you'd like to listen to the whole song, email me. It's fantastic.
posted by odinsdream at 3:25 PM on March 7, 2005

Also, Alfred Noyes was British, so I doubt that the poem was about the U.S. Revolutionary War. IIRC, Bess' lover is a bandit, and the king's men are trying to use her as bait to capture her lover.
posted by Johnny Assay at 4:53 PM on March 7, 2005

Phil Ochs does an excellent, excellent version of it as well. Worth downloading.
posted by rafter at 7:04 PM on March 7, 2005

I like the Ochs version too, rafter--and because it's him, it changes the emphasis from tragic romance to tragic tale of government oppression. His version leaves some stanzas out, though, fyi.

The poem does have the lines "The redcoat troops came marching, marching, marching / King George's men came marching," which could locate it in the American Revolution. But the highwayman also rides on the moor, which isn't a term one normally uses for American geography. Maybe a British writer of the period would have used it, though.
posted by hippugeek at 12:53 AM on March 8, 2005

The poem does have the lines "The redcoat troops came marching, marching, marching / King George's men came marching," which could locate it in the American Revolution.

Forgive me, but this is pure Yankocentrism. All the lines do is locate it in the reign of one of the Georges (ie, 1740-1830 -- I assume he wouldn't have been writing about George V, since the highwayman would have driven up in a Bentley). British troops were "redcoats" wherever they were. And there are no "moors" in America; I've just been through the OED citations and found none with such a referent.

it changes the emphasis from tragic romance to tragic tale of government oppression

Oy.
posted by languagehat at 7:41 AM on March 8, 2005