A Girl Of Nineteen

 

A Girl Of Nineteen

 

In a French castle’s keep of yesteryear,

Rapists, guarding their prisoner, dwelt,

I fancy ghostly memories here;

Echoes of pain, both given and felt,

Where once a heretic, so deemed to be,

By pro-British triers, spent her last night;

Only an adolescent was she,

Dressed in male clothing, lest the guards might

With unbridled lust and demonic desire,

Commit outrages of sexual incline:

She, for those garments, was put to the fire

By bishops and earls with politick design.

As the flames touched, imagine her pain;

I’ll wager nobody perusing this can:

Posthumously, she was tried again,

Found innocent, and after a span

Of four centuries, they made her saint;

An irony striking me as obscene,

Pondering rulers who showed no restraint,

When burning alive a girl of nineteen.