Words For Music Perhaps
William Butler Yeats
CRAZY JANE AND THE BISHOP
BRING me to the blasted oak
That I, midnight upon the stroke,
i{(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:
i{The solid man and the coxcomb.}
Nor was he Bishop when his ban
Banished Jack the Journeyman,
i{(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:
i{The solid man and the coxcomb.}
The Bishop has a skin, God knows,
Wrinkled like the foot of a goose,
i{(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:
i{The solid man and the coxcomb.}
Jack had my virginity,
And bids me to the oak, for he
i{(all find safety in the tomb.})
Wanders out into the night
And there is shelter under it,
But should that other come, I spit:
i{The solid man and the coxcomb.}
