The Bards
The bards falter in shame, their running verse
Stumbles, with marrow—bones the drunken diners
Pelt them for their delay.
It is a something fearful in the song
Plagues them —an unknown grief that like a churl
Goes commonplace in cowskin
And bursts unheralded, crowing and coughing,
An unpilled holly—club twirled in his hand,
Into their many—shielded, samite—curtained,
Jewel—bright hall where twelve kings sit at chess
Over the white—bronze pieces and the gold;
And by a gross enchantment
Flalils down the rafters and leads off the queens —
The wild—swan—breasted, the rose—ruddy—cheeked
Raven—haired daughters of their admiration —
To stir his black pots and to bed on straw.
