Deep and intense

In 1995, the BBC wanted to know what poems the people of the British isles loved to read the most. Number 15 on that list was The Highwayman.  I guess I am a hopeless romantic, but I like the poem too, and have liked it since I was in 9th grade where I read it for the first time.  From then until now, I have read the poem probably 50 times or more.

The highwayman loves Bess; she loves him.  The intensity of their love comes later in the poem when The highwayman rides through the night back to see Bess, carrying his spoils from the night.  She warns him of the danger lying in wait for him, but it costs her her life. He doesn't know that, so he rides to be by her side, and it costs him his life.  Deep, intense love.

The last two stanzas of Part One are written below.  These stanzas represent the entire poem to me

“One kiss, my bonny sweetheart, I’m after a prize to-night,
But I shall be back with the yellow gold before the morning light;
Yet, if they press me sharply, and harry me through the day,  
Then look for me by moonlight,
         Watch for me by moonlight,
I’ll come to thee by moonlight, though hell should bar the way.”

He rose upright in the stirrups. He scarce could reach her hand,
But she loosened her hair in the casement. His face burnt like a brand
As the black cascade of perfume came tumbling over his breast;  
And he kissed its waves in the moonlight,
         (O, sweet black waves in the moonlight!)
Then he tugged at his rein in the moonlight, and galloped away to the west.


I guess I'm a hopeless romantic... but it could happen.  Deep.  Intense.