A strong power calls from the left hand

Across the waters deep

a strong power calls from the left hand

let all things sleep or weep



oh the queen of love, you have unwove my eyes

and my heart will not sleep



the eye would sleep but the mind would rise

I must needs walk down God's eyebrows

and along the street of his eyes

look for me and you will see me in my red cloak

swimming determined

as God's blood flows



creatures of grief you beg from the thief

I will not carry home your sacks of sorrow

but I will pay the fiddler good silver if he smiles

pray God he see tomorrow



and the fine fine girls that are into it

and my eyes with salt water swim

and we disputing with a brittle gaiety

upon the world's rim

if I sought to love you with my body

it would be with a bent back

unto the day of doom



Oh the Queen of Love

I am in her heart

she is in my room



and together alone we clasp hands

and in each other's eyes walk the endless shore

and below I have my duty to perform in the song

and that that I was

you will see it no more



the snow is on the hills of my heart

and to speak is to die

the men at arms do seek to mark me

and the monks raise hue and cry

seek me in vain on Golgotha

or in fear's hollow

for the way I take today

only the true may follow



the ancestors in stone armour

calling for loyalty untrue

seek to make a zigzag of the arrow's flight

it is so swaddled in the bands of form

but I am girdled with the storm

and cloaked with the night

I am not to be seen or found

save only in what I cause

standing outside on the inside outside

perfectingness and flaws



how will I say where I end

or where you begin

how will I say, what shall I play

shall it be you or the wild wind

as Pan with the unsane eyes

or with the wild horns

or when I am crowned with the paper crown

or with the crown of thorns



a strong power compels distortion from the right hand

fleece to the grey wolves

fangs to the grey sheep

but the Queen of Love she strokes

my body alive, that I do not sleep.

The doctor brews potions and pills

to open his own front door

and the locksmith makes strong bolts

to bar his gates to every new breeze that blows

shall I now put lion's ears upon my ears

hear every sound as a roar

shall I now put mouse's eyes upon my eyes

gauge the moon for size against my paw



while the Queen of Love

she sings to me

from above and beyond the world



and I observe my mind

it is playing ignorant boy

while at her feet I am curled



and I remember all female movements so well

of such a form to bring much joy and ease much care

to perfume and let fall the coloured gown

and to let down the curling hair.



But now I play seed thrower

and I will play three-legged man

I will play dream weaver and day bringer

and catch as catch can



While the Queen of Love

she swims like a silver dove in my mind's room

and my body sleepwalks down the road

in a warm dark swoon