Aubade

Jane, Jane

Tall as a crane,

The morning light creaks down again;

Comb your cockscomb-ragged hair,

Jane, Jane, Come down the stair.

Each dull blunt wooden stalactite

Of rain creaks, hardened by the light,

Sounding like an overtone

From some lonely world unknown.

But the creaking empty light

Will never harden into sight,

Will never penetrate your brain

With overtoncs like the blunt rain,

The light would show

(if it could harden)

Eternities of kitchen garden,

Cockscomb flowers

that none will pluck,

And wooden flowers

that 'gin to cluck.

In the kitchen you must light

Flames as staring, red and white,

As carrots or as turnips, shining

Where the old dawn light lies whining

Cockscomb hair on the cold wind

Hangs limp,

turns the milk's weak mind...

Jane, Jane,

Tall as a crane,

The morning light

creaks down again!