Mary Mary
By the waterside
Stitch thy hat
And throw up thy hair
Yours is the power
Of all the lands
For you are queen
Of all the birds
Yours is the kingdom
Of France and Britain
Yours is the kingdom
Of Israel and Babylon
The Duke of York bows to your hand
Your prayers are long and great
Like Hadrian’s wall
So leap like a frog
And speak like an ocean
Mary Mary
Sleeping by the waterside
Our countenance
Is here in the fabric of forever
Forever and forever
Faster and faster
Lighter and yet lighter
Before becoming nothing
Yet you are always something
Mary Mary
Sleeping by the meadow’s side
Your light sleeps across the earth
And yet is awake inside the moon
And so shake ye thy countenance
And let the earth roll asleep in the mud
For ghosts and spirits claim your bounty
With words like a spiral
And voices
Like a subliminal
Pitch
For we all know
That you possess some strange mystery
And some strange power
Like Joan of Arc
You rule the kingdom
You fend off Napoleon
And you crush the pride of Caesar
By your strange wisdom you do these things
Yet you are small and delicate
And yet you are gentle and certainly kind
Mary Mary your voice is like an echo
Which reaches over the moon and sinks into the earth
The middle of the earth is the tongue of your fair pitch
Let love sprinkle justice into the cakes which you compose
And bring fine spirits with you
As we eat and drink ourselves
Into the strangeness of thy night