The Black Sheep, by Joanna Newsom
T’was a humdrum, cloud-bespotted day Rumblesome skies unfurled, turbid and grey And the air was charged with smoke, was charged with sulphur and with hay As I tripped like a sea-washed shingle down yon rocky terrain The whippoorwill cawed slyly in the sighing willow trees And the long grass heaved with the bulk of the breeze And as it blew, it grew, and drew toward my feet, toward my knees So I hummed like a mariner; chanted my larky, garbled refrain And as to pick some dandelions and mint and sage I knelt I chanced upon a woe-behobbled beast, upon whose charcoal pelt The brunt of weather and of hunger was sorely felt I asked him whence his wool had gone, and sadly he did explain: “Aye sir, nay sir – I do shiver verily to tell This coat of mine, my garment, my friend, was taken for to sell, By my master and his cruel dame, and the little boys who dwell In the crumble-down cottage, down the honeysuckle lane” We cleft our ways; I watched the path he took As he limped...