The Ballad of the Quick and Dead
A lone speaker sits each night keeping vigil beside the ghost of a "little cotton-aproned" servant girl who once lived and died in a farmhouse. Though she has been dead, the speaker learns, she still appears every night, setting the milk and bread on the table just as she did in life, so naturally that "one scarce would know that she was dead." She died long ago in the farmhouse's great bed, from which one can see the sunset in the cherry tree and hear the fold-bound wethers bleating. The man she loved, who now lives far away in another country, neither knows nor cares that his supper is still laid for him each night by her ghost. She lays the meal as she did in the twilights of the past, when, after the day's farm labor was done, his passion would take from her its nightly due, and she gave up her peace and innocence for his sake without complaint. She lived for love and died for love, though that love brought her only agony, and in the place where her joy was sold for love, she goes on loving eternally. The man does not care: he wanders far off among light, wine, and pleasure, striving to forget the "little cottage dove" he once caught and won, who gave everything and asked for nothing in return — yet he cannot escape her, for she still haunts the crumbling farmhouse where they once were together. The speaker, watching this, wishes aloud that someone he himself loves and holds dear would likewise return and spread the board for him as this ghost does for her forgetful lover. If that could happen, the speaker says, he would not wander away or struggle to forget; instead he would go straight to her, pledge the cup, and break the bread with one who has been dead for ten years — which he declares would be heaven indeed. But he recognizes this cannot be: no dreams of him disturb the quiet sleep of the one he loved, and while thoughts of her wake him each night to weep, she does not come when he calls, nor does she know that he grieves. The speaker insists he never mocked her trust or robbed her of her innocence, but gave her all he had with both hands; even so, she never thinks of him, and she does not come. So every night the speaker sits alone, seeing the same little cotton-aproned ghost pass by, indifferent to his presence. He closes by naming this the double truth of love: it is the tragedy of love that the dead dream of the living, and the living dream of the dead; and it is the mockery of love that the dead forget the living, and the living forget the dead.
By Sheila Kaye-Smith · Genre: Poetry, Ballad, Gothic · 598 words
First lines
And every night I sit alone, / And every night I see / A little cotton-aproned ghost / Who takes no heed of me.
She sets the milk, she sets the bread, / One scarce would know that she was dead -- / But long ago death gave her greeting, / In the great bed whence one can see / The sunset in the cherry tree, / And hear the fold-bound wethers bleating.
Genres
- Poetry — The work is structured as a narrative poem with consistent rhyme scheme, meter, and stanzaic form.
- Ballad — The piece employs traditional ballad conventions with a repeated refrain, regular quatrains, and a story of romance and tragedy told in verse.
- Gothic — The work features supernatural elements, a ghostly haunting, death, a decaying farmhouse, and an atmosphere of darkness and melancholy characteristic of Gothic literature.
- Romantic — Central themes of passionate love, emotional intensity, and idealized devotion dominate the narrative, though expressed through a tragic lens.
Tags
unrequited love · ghost · death · supernatural · tragic love · ballad · narrative poem · mourning · servant girl · rural setting · farmhouse · countryside
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The Ballad of the Quick and Dead is listed on Textopian as a poem by Sheila Kaye-Smith, dated Date unknown.
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- Work type: Poem
- Author: Sheila Kaye-Smith
- Date: Date unknown
- Language: English
- Genres: Poetry, Ballad, Gothic, Romantic, Supernatural
- Length: 598 words
- Structure: 1 section, 13 paragraphs
- Reading fit: Fairly Easy (7th Grade)
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