Thomas The Rhymer


With Glamour and with Meadowsweet

The Seely Court are out to play tonight;
the Vandals and the Visigoths in violence
are bound to them with love of dancing
and the bloody poetry of moonlight.

In the dark they see by their own lights,
the silver mantles at their pretty edges,
and show the way to human lovers
with glamour and with Meadowsweet.

And in the bowers of the fields and verges,
we hear them in our restless sleep, in mirth.
And like some monster, loved by gliding beauty,
the farm boys see the white sheets shaking.

Out for revolution, on our way to school,
we find them, dead and smiling, bloodless,
drained like sheep upon the hook,
with glamour and with Meadowsweet.

And gleefully we bear them home like furniture
we found, discarded in the forest.
The witches in this village bless them
with their misguided animistic spirit.

We bury them with songs and dancing,
and warn ourselves off night time wandering,
where tall, lighted women tempt us to death
with glamour and with Meadowsweet.