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CRAZY JANE AND THE BISHOP
Bring me to the blasted oak That I, midnight upon the stroke, (All find safety in the tomb.) May call down curses on his head Because of my dear Jack that’s dead. Coxcomb was the least he said: The solid man and the coxcomb. Nor was he Bishop when his ban Banished Jack the Journeyman, (All find safety in the tomb.) Nor so much as parish priest, Yet he, an old book in his fist, Cried that we lived like beast and beast: The solid man and the coxcomb. The Bishop has a skin, God knows, Wrinkled like the foot of a goose, (All find safety in the tomb.) Nor can he hide in holy black The heron’s hunch upon his back, But a birch-tree stood my Jack: The solid man and the coxcomb. Jack had my virginity, And bids me to the oak, for he (All find safety in the tomb.) Wanders out into the night And there is shelter under it, But should that other come, I spit: The solid man and the coxcomb. |
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CRAZY JANE ON THE DAY OF JUDGMENT
‘Love is all Unsatisfied That cannot take the whole Body and soul’; And that is what Jane said. ‘Take the sour If you take me, I can scoff and lour And scold for an hour.’ That’s certainly the case,’ said he. ‘Naked I lay, The grass my bed; Naked and hidden away, That black day’; And that is what Jane said. What can be shown? What true love be? All could be known or shown If time were but gone.’ That’s certainly the case,’ said he. |
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CRAZY JANE REPROVED
I care not what the sailors say: All those dreadful thunder-stones, All that storm that blots the day Can but show that heaven yawns; Great Europa played the fool That changed a lover for a bull. Fol de rol, fol de rol. To rounds that shell’s elaborate whorl, Adorning every secret track With the delicate mother-of pearl, Made the joints of heaven crack: So never hang your heart upon A roaring, ranting journeyman. Fol de rol, fol de rol. |
The words from the CRAZY JANE poems are set to music by permission of A P Watt Ltd on behalf of Micheal B Yeats
