This, for the record, is to the SONG 'The Highwayman'. Not the POEM. It's my fifteenth story! I adore the Highwayman, and this was the outcome!
I don't own Avatar: The Last Airbender or The Highwayman.
The
wind was a torrent of darkness among the gusty trees
The moon was
a ghostly war-ship charging forth on raging seas
The road was a
ribbon of moonlight over the purple moor
And a warrior boy came
riding, riding, riding,
A warrior boy came riding, up to the Bei
Fong's door.
He'd his hair pulled back from his forehead, a
dark cloak blocked his face,
A shirt of bluest blue, and breeches
of warm pole-skin;
They fitted with never a wrinkle; his boots
were torn with wear!
And he rode with a jewelled twinkle,
His
knife hilts a-twinkle,
His boomerang blade a-twinkle, under the
jewelled sky.
Over the cobbles he clattered and clashed in the
Bei Fong's yard,
And he tapped with his spear on the shutters,
but all was locked and barred;
He whistled a tune to the window,
and who should be waiting there
But the Bei Fong's green-eyed
daughter,
Toph, the Bei Fong's daughter,
Plaiting a dark red
love-knot into her long black hair.
"One kiss, my
bending sweetheart, I'm off to help Aang tonight,
But I shall be
back with a vict'ry song before the morning light;
Yet if they
press us sharply, and harry us through the day,
Then I'll be
here by the moonlight, listen for me by the moonlight,
I'll come
to thee by the moonlight, though hell should bar the way."
He
rose upright in the stirrups; he scarce could reach her hand
But
she loosened her hair in the casement! His face burnt like a brand
As
the black cascade of her dark hair came tumbling over his face;
And
he kissed its locks in the moonlight,
(Oh, sweet locks in the
moonlight!)
He tugged at his rein in the moonlight, and galloped
away to the west.
He did not come at the dawning; he did not
come at noon,
And out of the tawny sunset, before the rise o' the
moon,
When the road was a nomad's ribbon, dancing through the
purple moor,
Fire Nation troops came marching, marching,
marching
Lord Ozai's men came marching, up to the Bei Fong's
door.
They said no word to Sir Bei Fong, they drank his ale
instead,
But they gagged his daughter and bound her to the foot of
her narrow bed;
Two of them knelt at the casement, with fire in
their hearts,
There was death at every window, hell at one dark
window;
For they could see, through the casement,
The road
that he would ride.
They had tied her up to attention, with
many a sniggering jest;
They had bound a saber beside her, with
the blade beneath her breast!
"now keep good watch!" And
they kissed her.
She heard the dead boy say
"I'll be
here by the moonlight, watch for me by the moonlight
I'll come to
thee by the moonlight, though hell should bar the way!"
She
twisted her hands behind her, but all the knots held good!
She
writhed her hands till her fingers were wet with sweat or blood!
They
stretched and strained in the darkness and the hours crawled by like
years!
Till, now, on the stroke of midnight, caught, on the stroke
of midnight,
The tip of one finger touched it! A small stone now
was hers!
Tlot-tlot! Had they heard it? The horse's hoofs
rang clear
Tlot-tlot, in the distance! Were they deaf that they
did not hear?
Down the ribbon of moonlight, over the brow of the
hill,
The warrior boy came riding, riding, riding!
The soldiers
looked to their priming!
She stood up straight and still!
Tlot
in the frosty silence! Tlot, in the echoing night!
Nearer he came
and nearer! Her face was like a light!
Her eyes grew wide for a
moment, She drew one last deep breath,
Then her finger moved in
the moonlight, her stone shot forth in the moonlight,
Fire flew
straight in the moonlight, and she warned him with her death.
He
turned; he spurred to the east; he did not know she stood
bowed,
with her head o'er the saber, drenched with her own red blood!
Not
till the dawn he heard it; his face grew grey to hear
How Toph,
the Bei Fong's daughter, the Bei Fong's blinded daughter,
Had
watched for her love in the moonlight, and died in the darkness
there.
And back, he spurred like a madman, shrieking a curse
to the sky
With the white road smoking behind him and his
boomerang brandished high!
Blood-red was the cloak in the golden
noon; wine-red was his bluest shirt,
when they shot him down on
the roadway, down like a dog on the roadway,
And he lay in his
blood on the roadway, with her face fresh in his mind.
Still
on a winter's night, they say, when the wind is in the trees,
When
the moon is a ghostly war ship, charging forth on raging seas,
When
the road is a ribbon of moonlight over the purple moor,
A warrior
boy comes riding, riding, riding,
A
warrior boy comes riding, up to the Bei Fong's door.