The Thomas Rufford Mysteries contain a number of poems, which have been reimagined here as songs using Suno. I hope you enjoy them. To understand their context, you'll just have to read the books!
My love said he’d come back and wed me one day Then the waves and the wind they sailed him away But I’ve waited for him for five years or more And the waves and the wind don’t bring him to shore.
Now merchants and farmers, they knock on my door They take off their hats and they cry and implore: ‘Wed me, and have all a woman could crave’ But I’ve turned them away, be they rich, be they brave.
So pity me, pity me, maiden am I No lover to kiss me, nor with me to lie A maiden I’ll stay, unkissed will I be Till the waves and the wind bring my true love to me.
Now some say I’m mad, that I’ll wither away If I don’t marry now, that a maiden I’ll stay Well, they may marry the first man they see But only my William will lie next to me.
So pity me, pity me, maiden am I No lover to kiss me, nor with me to lie A maiden I’ll stay, unkissed will I be Till the waves and the wind bring my true love to me.
Of all my friends with a beautiful tail, One is uppermost, no longer frail But strong as an athlete, quick as a dart With inspiring profile, a model for art A hero for stories of daring and skill In short, unique, not run-of-the-mill. Should we sadly be parted from the great Pantoufle We would gladly remember, but remain ever rueful.
Young and sweet, with dainty feet, and wings to shame a dove Belle flew with ease and toiled to please her Master from above Her sin, it’s said: to take to bed the boys and men below She lost God’s trust with dreadful lust that dealt her soul a blow.
And so like this, from kiss to kiss, our angel plied her trade But careless flings had frayed her wings and youth began to fade. “Why must I age?” she cried in rage, and God gave this reply: “Now corrupt and greatly tupped, like mortals, you must die!”
Though once sublime, the marks of time lay deep on Belle’s pale cheeks She found no cheer, no man came near, her pain drew on for weeks Until at last, to end her fast, she leapt upon a fool With Captain’s dress, and no finesse, but easy with his tool.
“Oh, Captain brave, you must me save,” she gasped and bared her breast, “No time to waste! Be quick, post haste! Please act on my request!” With great surprise, he stripped his guise, and did his manly best; He grasped her tight, and used his might, and then he took his rest.
As she lay prone, a wingèd crone, he felt a pang of shame This feathered prey was old and grey, and not his usual game. “I do declare, O creature bare, your shrivelled dugs disgust “But I care naught, it’s all in sport, and I must slake my lust.”
“Oh, soldier fine,” said hag divine, “no army have I spied!” “Indeed, I fled,” the Captain said, “for many men have died. “I feel no urge to see the surge of blood upon the loam “I have no heart to play my part; I’d rather stay at home.”
Our soldier lad donned all he had and said, “Farewell, dear Belle “I have in mind a younger bride, and she does love me well.” Belle flutters still, o’er dale and hill, to hook a willing mate Beware, all youth, of the long in tooth – old Belle has lusts to sate.
For me, my Eves have bitten through a shield of fruit
To let me slither ’round their hearts and try my double suit
They give their love beneath the tree, on tender mossy bed
And I, writhing, not my skin but Heav’nly favour shed.
Twice the sins of Adam damn my errant, forfeit soul
Yet I chance the flames for joy upon our am’rous knoll
Lips, and lips again press me to my Cupid’s task
My days are bliss, my Eves are fill’d with all they ask.
Precious muse, that bears a torch to light my barren gloom
Also wakes the brute that loots the stillness from my room.
No sooner does my wingèd god of hope descend
Than stretches Bram, who mews and begs my art to end.
My thoughts, though forced in line like soldiers in the morn
Are once more scattered, from their posts now torn
By greater might than muses can supply.
Claws are drawn – and blood, if long I shun his cry.
Later will this creature seek a flash of wing
Or trembling tail and to my study bring
A prize to pay me back for scaring off my words
Which alight, then flap away like mobs of skittish birds.
But haste – at last, the weary hunter naps for now
On his cushioned throne, while poet prays for no miaow
Until the verse is poured upon the waiting leaf:
A modest haul of treasure safe from hirsute stanza thief.
We often act, we men, as though
There’s little left for us to know
We strut and preen, and put on airs
Master of our world’s affairs.
Now comes maid, upon a mission
To unearth a frightening vision
Of an age before all creeds:
When crawled monstrous millipedes.
What ghastly maw does satiate
Pangs of this invertebrate?
What of faith, what use to pray
When writhing serpent comes this way?
Tremble at these marks on stone
Cower at the length of bone
Men bow down and ladies curtsy:
Fear these beasts, devoid of mercy!
Many legged worm of terror
Could you be Creation’s error?
Clerics sweat to see their sermon
Nullified by ancient vermin.
Learned journals host debate:
What means this grim invertebrate?
Still, all parties are agreed –
We’re glad you’re dead, vast millipede!
Do not ask, my sweet, the history of my loving heart
Nor count the maidens’ hearts that lie in shards
For want of sense to see the lover’s art
And wisely flee from me, the knave of bards.
Nor shall I demand to know the ardour of your past
Your girlish dreams of shining knight, his jousting pole in hand
Or half-cloth’d sailor storm-tied to his mast
Or gentle shepherd poet; or player in a roving band.
“Fie!” – you cry – “why must you weigh my dreams against your sin?
Mere wraiths of fancy next to fleshly deeds!”
But lust is lust, my love, and human will is thin
And quickly breaks when tried by carnal needs.
So let us wash our wits and paint our pasts with lime
And vow to love until the day we die
Ne’er mastered by the shades of perished time.
Come, my love, and cast off all, and sweetly lie.
When a child, the days shone brightly
Pleasures many, woes worn lightly
Evil was a story tell’d me
Whilst my loving mother held me.
Expell’d from childhood’s chrysalis,
Gorg’d I on the heady bliss
Of wisdom borrow’d, men to follow
Notions brave to mould tomorrow.
Seeping in with fact and theorem
Came a dark and oily serum
Doubt, despair, it sought my weakness;
Pox of mind, a boil of bleakness.
Passion’s guilt I took for sinning
So my scapegoat had beginning:
Acts and thoughts condemning me
Flowed from sinner, poet, he.
Vanity, though once remov’d
Meant this creature must be prov’d
And thus achiev’d a cheating fame:
The one I made to take my blame.
When the light in the eyes of my mother was fading,
Softly she bade me to listen and mind;
The story she’d kept from me, now came cascading
With tears and the last drop of strength she could find.
‘The sorrow of losing the one man I cared for,
Kept me from telling you all that I might;
He was handsome and strong, and how could I not adore
A man whose caresses inspired such delight?
‘Child, be you warned by the folly of one
Who drank from a cup that was tainted by sin
When pleasure was taken and dalliance done,
All I had was a promise, and expectance of kin.
‘Oh, man of the Navy, bold man of the sea,
You told me, ’tween kisses, you’d come back for me
To build me a house on the very same land
Where you gave me my daughter while holding my hand.
‘But the vows of a sailor, my girl, are like water
That drains to the ocean to vanish from sight
All I have of him now is my bonny young daughter
And a button he lost on that passionate night.’
I wept as I held her, her spirit now fled
And pledged to be true to what I had learned
But next year, my Jimmy came courting and said,
‘Oh, come let me kiss you, too long have I yearned!’
Now Jim has a smile that makes me grow faint
And love has the strength of a cannon of war
So Jimmy had kisses, and I no complaint,
But that was the last time he came through my door.
A daughter I have now, with Jim’s deep blue eyes,
And I wander the sands with my gaze out to sea
My girl plays with shells and as the light dies,
I sing an old song that was passed down to me.
Oh, man of the Navy, bold man of the sea,
You told me, ’tween kisses, you’d come back for me
To build me a house on the very same land
Where you gave me my daughter while holding my hand.
by Thomas Rufford
Those whose cheer today is blind to woes of 'morrow
And have a merchant's eye for what we only borrow
Mistake a rose's bloom and doom as model for this land
Whose beauty's duty is to bow to base demand.
Janus, welcomed as a friend in every hallowed place
Devours all within his path no matter what its timeless grace
Till wringing hands, and crying Cease! its victims wail their ugly fate
But Janus merely smirks and finds more works of God, his greed to sate.
Where shall we find the wit to skewer Janus 'fore he wrests
The very waters from our valley, nightingales from out their nests?
Our children in their cots sleep still, dreaming not of birthright thefts;
While stealthily moves Janus,
To crush the charms of man and God that he detests.