WORDS FOR MUSIC PERHAPS
 
 I - 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.
 
 II - 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 round 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.
 
 III - 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.
 
 IV - CRAZY JANE AND JACK THE JOURNEYMAN
 
 I KNOW, although when looks meet
 I tremble to the bone,
 The more I leave the door unlatched
 The sooner love is gone,
 For love is but a skein unwound
 Between the dark and dawn.
 A lonely ghost the ghost is
 That to God shall come;
 I – love's skein upon the ground,
 My body in the tomb –
 Shall leap into the light lost
 In my mother's womb.
 But were I left to lie alone
 In an empty bed,
 The skein so bound us ghost to ghost
 When he turned his head
 passing on the road that night,
 Mine must walk when dead.
 
 V - CRAZY JANE ON GOD
 
 THAT lover of a night
 Came when he would,
 Went in the dawning light
 Whether I would or no;
 Men come, men go;
 All things remain in God.
 Banners choke the sky;
 Men-at-arms tread;
 Armoured horses neigh
 In the narrow pass:
 All things remain in God.
 Before their eyes a house
 That from childhood stood
 Uninhabited, ruinous,
 Suddenly lit up
 From door to top:
 All things remain in God.
 I had wild Jack for a lover;
 Though like a road
 That men pass over
 My body makes no moan
 But sings on:
 All things remain in God.
 
 VI - CRAZY JANE TALKS WITH THE BISHOP
 
 I MET the Bishop on the road
 And much said he and I.
 "Those breasts are flat and fallen now,
 Those veins must soon be dry;
 Live in a heavenly mansion,
 Not in some foul sty.'
 "Fair and foul are near of kin,
 And fair needs foul,' I cried.
 "My friends are gone, but that's a truth
 Nor grave nor bed denied,
 Learned in bodily lowliness
 And in the heart's pride.
 "A woman can be proud and stiff
 When on love intent;
 But Love has pitched his mansion in
 The place of excrement;
 For nothing can be sole or whole
 That has not been rent.'
 
 VII - CRAZY JANE GROWN OLD LOOKS AT THE DANCERS
 
 I FOUND that ivory image there
 Dancing with her chosen youth,
 But when he wound her coal-black hair
 As though to strangle her, no scream
 Or bodily movement did I dare,
 Eyes under eyelids did so gleam;
 Love is like the lion's tooth.
 When She, and though some said she played
 I said that she had danced heart's truth,
 Drew a knife to strike him dead,
 I could but leave him to his fate;
 For no matter what is said
 They had all that had their hate;
 Love is like the lion's tooth.
 Did he die or did she die?
 Seemed to die or died they both?
 God be with the times when I
 Cared not a thraneen for what chanced
 So that I had the limbs to try
 Such a dance as there was danced –
 Love is like the lion's tooth.
 
 VIII - GIRL'S SONG
 
 I WENT out alone
 To sing a song or two,
 My fancy on a man,
 And you know who.
 Another came in sight
 That on a stick relied
 To hold himself upright;
 I sat and cried.
 And that was all my song –
 When everything is told,
 Saw I an old man young
 Or young man old?
 
 IX - YOUNG MAN'S SONG
 
 "SHE will change,' I cried.
 "Into a withered crone.'
 The heart in my side,
 That so still had lain,
 In noble rage replied
 And beat upon the bone:
 "Uplift those eyes and throw
 Those glances unafraid:
 She would as bravely show
 Did all the fabric fade;
 No withered crone I saw
 Before the world was made.'
 Abashed by that report,
 For the heart cannot lie,
 I knelt in the dirt.
 And all shall bend the knee
 To my offended heart
 Until it pardon me.
 
 X - HER ANXIETY
 
 EARTH in beauty dressed
 Awaits returning spring.
 All true love must die,
 Alter at the best
 Into some lesser thing.
 Prove that I lie.
 Such body lovers have,
 Such exacting breath,
 That they touch or sigh.
 Every touch they give,
 Love is nearer death.
 Prove that I lie.
 
 XI - HIS CONFIDENCE
 
 UNDYING love to buy
 I wrote upon
 The corners of this eye
 All wrongs done.
 What payment were enough
 For undying love?
 I broke my heart in two
 So hard I struck.
 What matter? for I know
 That out of rock,
 Out of a desolate source,
 Love leaps upon its course.
 
 XII - LOVE'S LONELINESS
 
 OLD fathers, great-grandfathers,
 Rise as kindred should.
 If ever lover's loneliness
 Came where you stood,
 Pray that Heaven protect us
 That protect your blood.
 The mountain throws a shadow,
 Thin is the moon's horn;
 What did we remember
 Under the ragged thorn?
 Dread has followed longing,
 And our hearts are torn.
 
 XIII - HER DREAM
 
 I DREAMED as in my bed I lay,
 All night's fathomless wisdom come,
 That I had shorn my locks away
 And laid them on Love's lettered tomb:
 But something bore them out of sight
 In a great tumult of the air,
 And after nailed upon the night
 Berenice's burning hair.
 
 XIV - HIS BARGAIN
 
 WHO talks of Plato's spindle;
 What set it whirling round?
 Eternity may dwindle,
 Time is unwound,
 Dan and Jerry Lout
 Change their loves about.
 However they may take it,
 Before the thread began
 I made, and may not break it
 When the last thread has run,
 A bargain with that hair
 And all the windings there.
 
 XV - THREE THINGS
 
 "O CRUEL Death, give three things back,'
 Sang a bone upon the shore;
 "A child found all a child can lack,
 Whether of pleasure or of rest,
 Upon the abundance of my breast':
 A bone wave-whitened and dried in the wind.
 "Three dear things that women know,'
 Sang a bhone upon the shore;
 "A man if I but held him so
 When my body was alive
 Found all the pleasure that life gave':
 A bone wave-whitened and dried in the wind.
 "The third thing that I think of yet,'
 Sang a bone upon the shore,
 "Is that morning when I met
 Face to face my rightful man
 And did after stretch and yawn':
 A bone wave-whitened and dried in the wind.
 
 XVI - LULLABY
 
 BELOVED, may your sleep be sound
 That have found it where you fed.
 What were all the world's alarms
 To mighty paris when he found
 Sleep upon a golden bed
 That first dawn in Helen's arms?
 Sleep, beloved, such a sleep
 As did that wild Tristram know
 When, the potion's work being done,
 Roe could run or doe could leap
 Under oak and beechen bough,
 Roe could leap or doe could run;
 Such a sleep and sound as fell
 Upon Eurotas' grassy bank
 When the holy bird, that there
 Accomplished his predestined will,
 From the limbs of Leda sank
 But not from her protecting care.
 
 XVII - AFTER LONG SILENCE
 
 SPEECH after long silence; it is right,
 All other lovers being estranged or dead,
 Unfriendly lamplight hid under its shade,
 The curtains drawn upon unfriendly night,
 That we descant and yet again descant
 Upon the supreme theme of Art and Song:
 Bodily decrepitude is wisdom; young
 We loved each other and were ignorant.
 
 XVIII - MAD AS THE MIST AND SNOW
 
 BOLT and bar the shutter,
 For the foul winds blow:
 Our minds are at their best this night,
 And I seem to know
 That everything outside us is
 Mad as the mist and snow.
 Horace there by Homer stands,
 Plato stands below,
 And here is Tully's open page.
 How many years ago
 Were you and I unlettered lads
 Mad as the mist and snow?
 You ask what makes me sigh, old friend,
 What makes me shudder so?
 I shudder and I sigh to think
 That even Cicero
 And many-minded Homer were
 Mad as the mist and snow.
 
 XIX - THOSE DANCING DAYS ARE GONE
 
 COME, let me sing into your ear;
 Those dancing days are gone,
 All that silk and satin gear;
 Crouch upon a stone,
 Wrapping that foul body up
 In as foul a rag:
 I carry the sun in a golden cup.
 The moon in a silver bag.
 Curse as you may I sing it through;
 What matter if the knave
 That the most could pleasure you,
 The children that he gave,
 Are somewhere sleeping like a top
 Under a marble flag?
 I carry the sun in a golden cup.
 The moon in a silver bag.
 I thought it out this very day.
 Noon upon the clock,
 A man may put pretence away
 Who leans upon a stick,
 May sing, and sing until he drop,
 Whether to maid or hag:
 I carry the sun in a golden cup,
 The moon in a silver bag.
 
 XX - "I AM OF IRELAND'
 
  AM of Ireland,
 And the Holy Land of Ireland,
 And time runs on,' cried she.
 "Come out of charity,
 Come dance with me in Ireland.'
 One man, one man alone
 In that outlandish gear,
 One solitary man
 Of all that rambled there
 Had turned his stately head.
 That is a long way off,
 And time runs on,' he said,
 "And the night grows rough.'
 I am of Ireland,
 And the Holy Land of Ireland,
 And time runs on,' cried she.
 "Come out of charity
 And dance with me in Ireland.'
 The fiddlers are all thumbs,
 Or the fiddle-string accursed,
 The drums and the kettledrums
 And the trumpets all are burst,
 And the trombone,' cried he,
 "The trumpet and trombone,'
 And cocked a malicious eye,
 "But time runs on, runs on.'
 I am of Ireland,
 And the Holy Land of Ireland,
 And time runs on,' cried she.
 "Come out of charity
 And dance with me in Ireland.'
 
 XXI - THE DANCER AT CRUACHAN AND CRO-PATRICK
 
 I, PROCLAIMING that there is
 Among birds or beasts or men
 One that is perfect or at peace.
 Danced on Cruachan's windy plain,
 Upon Cro-patrick sang aloud;
 All that could run or leap or swim
 Whether in wood, water or cloud,
 Acclaiming, proclaiming, declaiming Him.
 
 XXII - TOM THE LUNATIC
 
 SANG old Tom the lunatic
 That sleeps under the canopy:
 "What change has put my thoughts astray
 And eyes that had s-o keen a sight?
 What has turned to smoking wick
 Nature's pure unchanging light?
 "Huddon and Duddon and Daniel O'Leary.
 Holy Joe, the beggar-man,
 Wenching, drinking, still remain
 Or sing a penance on the road;
 Something made these eyeballs weary
 That blinked and saw them in a shroud.
 "Whatever stands in field or flood,
 Bird, beast, fish or man,
 Mare or stallion, cock or hen,
 Stands in God's unchanging eye
 In all the vigour of its blood;
 In that faith I live or die."
 
 XXIII - TOM AT CRUACHAN
 
 ON Cruachan's plain slept he
 That must sing in a rhyme
 What most could shake his soul:
 "The stallion Eternit
 Mounted the mare of Time,
 'Gat the foal of the world.'
 
 XXIV - OLD TOM AGAIN
 
 THINGS out of perfection sail,
 And all their swelling canvas wear,
 Nor shall the self-begotten fail
 Though fantastic men suppose
 Building-yard and stormy shore,
 Winding-sheet and swaddling – clothes.
 
 XXV - THE DELPHIC ORACLE UPON PLOTINUS
 
 BEHOLD that great Plotinus swim,
 Buffeted by such seas;
 Bland Rhadamanthus beckons him,
 But the Golden Race looks dim,
 Salt blood blocks his eyes.
 Scattered on the level grass
 Or winding through the grove
 plato there and Minos pass,
 There stately Pythagoras
 And all the choir of Love.