Beggar's Serenade
I'm a peevish old man with a penny-whistle
Blowing under your window this blessed evening
But pause a moment and hear the tune I'm playing
I never was handsome and my limbs aren't straight
But I raise my finger and the girls all follow me
And leave some of the spruce young fellows gaping
I had a painted girl whom none spoke well of
And I had a milmaid who didn't know cow from bull
And a girl with green flesh out of a lucky hill
And I had a lady as fine and as proud as you
To follow me forty leagues and bed under a bush
And I left her weeping at the long lane's end
And are you sure where you will lie tonight, woman?
The Unpredicted
The goddess Fortune be praise(on her toothed wheel
I have been mincemeat these several years)
Last night, for a whole night, the unpredictable
Lay in my arms, in a tender and unquiet rest -
(I perceived the irrelevance of my former tears) -
Lay, and at dawn departed. I rose and walked the streets
Where a whitesuntide wind blew fresh, and blackbirds
Incontestable sang, and the people where beautiful.
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