Goodbye

Goodbye

From the hag and hungry goblin
That into rags would rend ye,
The spirit who stands by the broke-backed man
In the Book of Books defend ye,
That of your five sound senses
You never be forsaken,
Nor wander from your heart unwound
Abroad to beg your bacon,
While I must sing, Any food, any feeding,
Feeding, drink, or clothing;
Come dame or maid, be not afraid,
Goodbye can injure nothing.

When your heart so bright would warm mine,
In grave hopes I did dissolve me.
And thus enraged, my dreams I mixed for thine.
If you chance the warden, bid ‘im call me:
I scratched them in the bed head —
‘twixt the buttocks and the siren.
Were not his knots that kept me
but lumpy wishes where I’d lie on.
Now found wrong I sing for food and for feeding,
Feed or drink or clothe one;
Come ghost or bod, be not afeared,
Farewells shall injure no-one.

Delirium’s a hole where some unravel
unaware and innocent of carriage.
But I rolled along the edges for to travel
to you in magical love and marriage.
I thought it well. I deemed it right
to explore what I felt in wanting you.
But quick it caught and held my belly tight
while whispering love — love we knew and would do.
What is the path that finds the deep wide way
beneath what’s clear-day said and done?
I thought faith’d bring me love, not astray.
I’m sorry. For what I sought and won
will never breathe nor ever mend.
Goodbye is all — our only, a broken end.

With a host of furious fancies
Whereof I am commander,
With a burning spear and a horse of air,
To the wilderness I wander.
By a knight of ghosts and shadows
I summoned am to tourney
Ten leagues beyond the wide world’s end:
Methinks it is no journey.
Yet will I sing, Any food, any feeding,
Feeding, drink, or clothing;
Come dame or maid, be not afraid,
Poor Tom will injure nothing.

You stupid boring braggart
It was into Goodbye that you slipped the dagger
that slashed friendship apart
you hurt a nice person for no good reason
in the squand’ring you broke your heart
I try you for contempt of love, the highest treason
And punish you to silence
in the cavern where speak the shadows
that comprise both day and night
So get you now and forever hence
Let some wiser other say what’s right

Middle Bedlam verses and a couple slight emendations to the first verse, and of course the final verse:
BW with AW, copyright AMW

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