Lament

Lyrics

When I was a windy boy and a bit And the black spit of the chapel fold (Sighed the old ram rod, dying of women) I tiptoed shy in the gooseberry wood The rude owl cried like a telltale tit I skipped in a blush as the big girls rolled Ninepin down on the donkeys' common And on seesaw sunday nights I wooed Whoever I would with my wicked eyes The whole of the moon I could love and leave All the green leaved little weddings' wives In the coal black bush and let them grieve When I was a gusty man and a half And the black beast of the beetles' pews (Sighed the old ram rod, dying of bitches) Not a boy and a bit in the wick- Dipping moon and drunk as a new dropped calf I whistled all night in the twisted flues Midwives grew in the midnight ditches And the sizzling beds of the town cried, Quick!- Whenever I dove in a breast high shoal Wherever I ramped in the clover quilts Whatsoever I did in the coal- Black night, I left my quivering prints When I was a man you could call a man And the black cross of the holy house (Sighed the old ram rod, dying of welcome) Brandy and ripe in my bright, bass prime No springtailed tom in the red hot town With every simmering woman his mouse But a hillocky bull in the swelter Of summer come in his great good time To the sultry, biding herds, I said Oh, time enough when the blood creeps cold And I lie down but to sleep in bed For my sulking, skulking, coal black soul! When I was a half of the man I was And serve me right as the preachers warn (Sighed the old ram rod, dying of downfall) No flailing calf or cat in a flame Or hickory bull in milky grass But a black sheep with a crumpled horn At last the soul from its foul mousehole Slunk pouting out when the limp time came; And I gave my soul a blind, slashed eye Gristle and rind, and a roarers' life And I shoved it into the coal black sky To find a woman's soul for a wife Now I am a man no more no more And a black reward for a roaring life (Sighed the old ram rod, dying of strangers) Tidy and cursed in my dove cooed room I lie down thin and hear the good bells jaw- For, oh, my soul found a sunday wife In the coal black sky and she bore angels! Harpies around me out of her womb! Chastity prays for me, piety sings Innocence sweetens my last black breath Modesty hides my thighs in her wings And all the deadly virtues plague my death!