More deep than my heart
or the roots of my brain:
the smiles you impart,
more deep than my heart,
pull me back to the start
and I'm falling again,
more deep than my heart
or the roots of my brain.

Here deep in the city it is always night.
As I walk each street it is always night.
The men in their mansions drink their delight.
For those in the streets it is always night.
Those in the doorways step out to fight.
They slip to where it is always night.
Each plays a game to increase his might.
Each keeps his brother where it is always night.
We laugh, and lie about the lands of light.
I still light candles where it is always night.

A dragon was the beast to fear,
With shining, perfect teeth,
And deadly spines upon its back,
And scaly skin beneath.
You'd see them fly across the sky
With dreadful wings unfanned,
In far-off days of long ago
When dragons ruled the land.

And as they flew they'd watch the ground,
With eyes devoid of pity,
They'd follow humans to their homes
And breathe upon their city.
The dragon's breath was instant death,
No houses still could stand,
In far-off days of long ago
When dragons ruled the land.

Then someone had a wise idea:
King Arthur and his Knights.
They travelled round the countryside,
And held great dragon-fights.
Each dragon's heart was split apart,
So triumphed Arthur's band;
And now no dragons linger
Any longer in the land.

Were I a cat, my love, I'd leave each day
a single dying mouse upon your bed;
but, human, I must find another way,
and honour you by leaving verse instead.

Because I could not wire a Plug,
It wired itself to me.
The carriage held but just ourselves,
And Electricity.

We passed the school, where children strove
To gain some erudition,
Ah! what a shame I did not learn
To be an Electrician.

For who would think a wire called live
The life of humans halts?
My wiring style contains, I fear,
Two hundred forty faults.

Since then 'tis centuries, and yet
We drive for all we're worth;
The eternal heavens seem so live;
So neutral seemed the earth.

I know a tree whose apples are more sweet
and nourishing and fair than any other:
a person it's a privilege to meet,
a maker, a maintainer, and a mother.
Her branches bring delight to every day
from each repeating month that I remember:
we lie beneath her blossomed boughs in May
and eat her rosy apples in September.
Yet as she gives, she lives as more than merely
a giving tree, that spends itself in giving:
for still she's not consumed, though shining yearly
with ever-fiercer fires of joyous living;
her roots in earth, and sunlight on her brows
and every blessèd child beneath her boughs.

Four and twenty ladies fair
attend St Martin's Hall.
And out then came fair Janet,
the fairest of them all.
She told me of her father's gold
as if it was a joke,
I saw no others laughing there,
and ordered *** and Coke.
She told me of her sculpture course,
and asked to write a ballad;
at such a form in moneyed hands
I choked upon my salad.
"I'll see what I can do", I said,
"to satisfy your itch,
but ballads are a pauper's form,
not open to the rich:
You wanna write in the common metre?
You wanna write how common people write?
You wanna make repetition sweeter?
You wanna churn out ballad stanzas all night?"
Well, what else was in sight?
I smiled and said, "All right."