Whenever I go by there nowadays
And look at the rank weeds and the strange grass,
The torn blue curtains and the broken glass,
I seem to be afraid of the old place;
And something stiffens up and down my face,
For all the world as if I saw the ghost
Of old Ham Amory, the murdered host,
With his dead eyes turned on me all aglaze.
The Tavern has a story, but no man
Can tell us what it is. We only know
That once long after midnight, years ago,
A stranger galloped up from Tilbury Town,
Who brushed, and scared, and all but overran
That skirt-crazed reprobate, John Evereldown.
The unconventional rhyme scheme helps to make this poem interseting to read. There is something eerie about how the poet leaves the reader hanging on the mystery of what the real story is about this place, now obviously closed and left in shambles. There is evidence of an aura of “evil” having befallen this place, and the reader tries to fill in the gaps of the untold story, and I think that makes this a good poem.