Comments on: Can you name the poem and the author?

Question: Can you name the poem and the author?

dagnyscott — Mon, 07 Mar 2005 12:37:51 -0800

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.

By: handful of rain

handful of rain — Mon, 07 Mar 2005 12:40:16 -0800

It's called "The Highway Man"--and it's not her husband, but her lover. I'll try to dig up a link...

By: handful of rain

handful of rain — Mon, 07 Mar 2005 12:42:14 -0800

The Highwayman

By: nelleish

nelleish — Mon, 07 Mar 2005 13:36:59 -0800

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.

By: odinsdream

odinsdream — Mon, 07 Mar 2005 15:25:21 -0800

Or if you'd like to listen to the whole song, email me. It's fantastic.

By: Johnny Assay

Johnny Assay — Mon, 07 Mar 2005 16:53:49 -0800

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.

By: rafter

rafter — Mon, 07 Mar 2005 19:04:56 -0800

Phil Ochs does an excellent, excellent version of it as well. Worth downloading.

By: hippugeek

hippugeek — Tue, 08 Mar 2005 00:53:58 -0800

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.

By: languagehat

languagehat — Tue, 08 Mar 2005 07:41:37 -0800

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.