The songs can be performed as a pair, with the title ‘As long as forever is’, or separately
under their individual titles.

1. The force that through the green fuse drives the flower
   Drives my green age; that blasts the roots of trees
   Is my destroyer.
   And I am dumb to tell the crooked rose
   My youth is bent by the same wintry fever.
   
   The force that drives the water through the rocks
   Drives my red blood; that dries the mouthing streams
   Turns mine to wax.
   And I am dumb to mouth unto my veins
   How at the mountain spring the same mouth sucks.
   
   The hand that whirls the water in the pool
   Stirs the quicksand; that ropes the blowing wind
   Hauls my shroud sail.
   And I am dumb to tell the hanging man
   How of my clay is made the hangman's lime.
   
   The lips of time leech to the fountain head;
   Love drips and gathers, but the fallen blood
   Shall calm her sores.
   And I am dumb to tell a weather's wind
   How time has ticked a heaven round the stars.
   
   And I am dumb to tell the lover's tomb
   How at my sheet goes the same crooked worm.
    
2. Twenty-four years remind the tears of my eyes.
   (Bury the dead for fear that they walk to the grave in labour).
   In the groin of the natural doorway I crouched like a tailor
   Sewing a shroud for a journey
   By the light of the meat-eating sun.
   Dressed to die, the sensual strut begun,
   With my red veins full of money
   In the final direction of the elementary town
   I advance for as long as forever is.

Dedicated to: John and Nicola Goodby.