Crazy Jane talks with the Bishop
Crazy Jane talks with the Bishop
Original Text
Yeats, William Butler. W. B. Yeats: Selected Poetry: 161. Ed. by A. Norman Jeffares. London: Macmillan, 1968.
1I met the Bishop on the road
2And much said he and I.
3'Those breasts are flat and fallen now,
4Those veins must soon be dry;
5Live in a heavenly mansion,
6Not in some foul sty.'
7'Fair and foul are near of kin,
8And fair needs foul,' I cried.
9'My friends are gone, but that's a truth
10Nor grave nor bed denied,
11Learned in bodily lowliness
12And in the heart's pride.
13'A woman can be proud and stiff
14When on love intent;
15But Love has pitched his mansion in
16The place of excrement;
17For nothing can be sole or whole
18That has not been rent.'
Publication Start Year
1932
Publication Notes
Words for Music Perhaps and Other Poems, 1932.
RPO poem Editors
Ian Lancashire, assisted by Ana Berdinskikh
RPO Edition
2009
Rhyme
Form