The Highwayman

I have a new favorite book: The Highwayman by Alfred Noyes.  Daddy found a nice watercolor illustrated version at the library.  At bedtime, he read it while we listened to Loreena McKemmit's sung version.  I was captivated by the imagery, the drauma, and McKemmit's haunting imagery.  The Highwayman is like a pirate and Bess the Lanlord's daughter is like a princess, so the story fits my genre well. 

Here's the whole poem: The Highwayman and here's McKemmit's song:

I was so impressed by the book and the song I asked to keep the book in bed to read again.  I fell asleep clutching it like a teddy bear!  The next night, the same thing.  And again the night after that!

On Sunday, daddy and I were playing Legos downstairs in my playroom when I had a cool idea: we could make scenes from the poem in Lego!  Here's some pictures:

 "They said no word to the landlord, 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 her casement, with muskets at their side!
There was death at every window;
And hell at one dark window;
For Bess could see, through her casement, the road that he would ride."

 "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,
Cold, on the stroke of midnight,
The tip of one finger touched it! The trigger at least was hers!"

 

"He'd a French cocked-hat on his forehead, a bunch of lace at his chin,

A coat of the claret velvet, and breeches of brown doe-skin;
They fitted with never a wrinkle: his boots were up to the thigh!
And he rode with a jewelled twinkle,
His pistol butts a-twinkle,
His rapier hilt a-twinkle, under the jewelled sky. "

And here's some random cute Denali photos: