Oh Come

Oh come to Fort William

The town of the fight

Where the timber men are drinking

The black brew through the night

And the factories are frozen

But the tourist bus rolls

Like an unending horizon

Of the carnival of souls

Come to Fort William

A very hard place

That is trapped between a Mountain

And the actions of Grace

Where woman may walk softly

Where a man is in disgrace

Because that is the nature of the whole

Human race

Give over your line drawings

Nothing is sublime

None more so the etchings from an unquiet mind

You poor mawkings

You Maoists of state

Who hunger for your purse strings

To bring up to date

The nurse in the court yard

The prisoner’s dock

The sentence that has thought hard

On the passing of the clock

The rain buffets trees

The rain will not cease

It comes round the lees

And leaves to the east

The tide is a miracle line

That shadow softly treads

The gull which glides has followed its threads

And it falls on the window pane

In tiny necklace beads

Which have clothed the clouds of heaven

Then by a tempest hurled

There is a queen there some place

Who has lost her jewels

Then they adorn the flowers

Hang around necks of cows or mules

The rose is spotted

In its pink promiscuous haze

It overshadows the cow parsley

On the hedge on rainy days

And we all call softly

Come back to life

And the master of death

Stands and sharpens his knife