Were not time remorseless sorrow
And the moon a Song of sixpence
I would ride this wiry wind into tomorrow
And hammer out the meaning
With the grammar and the tense
And with the water streaming
I’d manipulate the sense

Like a blacksmith at the anvil
I’d strike and cut the rhyme
And bent above the white hot words
I’d wipe away the grime
With a shaft of light above me
And the furnace far below
I would smelt and forge and press the words
To see how far they’d go


For those of you who’d ask me
If that hammering was in vain:
I’d clutch and haul a twisted ring
Within a golden chain