A Rhyming Poem Written for School

The Black House

Deep in a forest in Scotland, a village was nestled
Where the blue birds whistled and the grizzly bears wrestled.
Fragrant was the flowers and dense was the trees
The fountain grass grew up to one’s knees.
The forest was pretty and the air was perfumed.

Every morning, the early-hour fog began to dwindle
And the married women tended their yarn-spinning spindle
And the men and lads milked the cows and fed the sheep
While the youngest daughter was still asleep.
The villagers were content and merry.

As every household set these daily procedures in motion,
There was one house, however, that showed no commotion.
Its windows were boarded and it was painted black
And it was rickety as though it were built not with nails but with tacks.
The black house was the oldest in the village.

But the villagers paid no attention to that house,
To them it was as insignificant as a mouse.
They believed it to be deserted,
But one day something happened that made them all disconcerted.
For the first time, wisps of smoke billowed from the chimney of the old black house.
Someone was in the black house, but who could it be?
Little did they know, the inhabitant had been there for eternity.
But the villagers were unhappy and soon grew into an angry band
Because the occupant provided no aid in tending the land.
Then the villagers formed a mob and besieged the old black house.

The villagers formed a circle and the house was in a surround
And they pried the wooden planks off the windows and threw them on the ground.
Then each one hurled sticks and stones and watched as the windows broke.
Then instantly they looked up and the chimney no longer billowed any smoke.
And the hounds and collies began to howl.

The angry villagers entered the home,
It was crowded and dusty with no room to roam.
They could not help but take a peak,
Even though what they saw made everyone shriek.
What lay there before them was the body of a man no younger than ninety.

A stone lay next to his head and blood lay strewn across the floor,
But seeing as he was just an old man, the cruel, callous villagers walked right out the door.
The sun set and the hounds and collies continued to howl,
All the while staring at the black house’s chimney cowl.
Something in the air was different and the dogs knew it.


The next morning, the summer sun did not blaze,
For the whole sky was in a haze.
And when the men went out to the farm,
What they saw sent them into immediate alarm.
Something terrible had happened.

The cows, the pigs, the sheep, and the goats lay dead in the mud,
At the sight of this the women fainted to the ground with a thud.
The hounds and collies who had been howling the night before were silenced forever,
The crops turned gray and withered to ash; there was no life in this village whatsoever.
Utter devastation swept through the village and a frigid cold wind blew the hats off their heads as they stared in disbelief.

An eternal winter was brought upon the village,
Because, foolishly, the old man they pillaged.
And their narrow minds were as small as a mouse
Because they never knew their source of life came from the old black house.