Well. just to demonstrate that I don’t issue threats idly, here is the complete lyric of Martin Carthy’s version of The Famous Flower of Serving Men followed by what is very much of a first draft of Fair Eleanor & Sweet William. Anybody who actually manages to negotiate their way through both pieces will note that my 659 words encompass only the first four verses of the song. And there are 28 more…
THE FAMOUS FLOWER OF SERVING MEN
My mother did me deadly spite,
for she sent thieves in the dark of the night.
Put my servants all to flight,
they robbed my bower, they slew my knight.
They couldn't do to me no harm
so they slew my baby in my arm.
Left me nought to wrap him in
but the bloody sheet that he lay in.
They left me nought to dig his grave
but the bloody sword that slew my babe.
All alone the grave I made,
and all alone the tears I shed.
And all alone the bell I rang,
and all alone the psalm I sang.
I leaned my head all against the block
and there I cut my lovely locks.
I cut my locks and I changed my name
from Fair Eleanor to Sweet William.
Went to court to serve my king
as the famous flower of serving men.
So well I served my lord the king
that he made me his chamberlain.
He loved me as his son,
the famous flower of serving men.
Oft time he'd look at me and smile,
so swift his heart I did beguile.
And he blessed the day that I became
the famous flower of serving men..
But all alone in my bed at e'en,
there I dream a dreadful dream.
I saw my bed swim with blood
and I saw the thieves all around my head.
Our king has to the hunting gone,
he's ta'en no lords nor gentlemen.
He's left me there to guard his home,
the famous flower of serving men.
Our king he rode the wood all around,
he stayed all day but nothing found.
And as he rode himself alone,
it's there he saw the milk-white hind.
The hind she broke, the hind she flew,
the hind she trampled the brambles through.
First she'd melt, then she'd sound,
sometimes before, sometimes behind.
Oh what is this, how can it be,
such a hind as this I ne'er did see.
Such a hind as this was never born,
I fear she'll do me deadly harm.
And long, long did the great horse turn
for to save his lord from branch and thorn.
But long ere the day was o'er
they tangled all in his yellow hair.
All in a glade the hind drew nigh,
the sun shone bright all in her eye.
He sprang down, sword drew,
she vanished there all from his view.
And all around the grass was green
and all around where a grave was seen.
And he sat himself all on the stone,
great weariness it seized him on.
Great silence hung from tree to sky,
the woods grew still, the sun hung fire.
As through the wood the dove he came,
as through the wood he made his moan.
Oh the dove he sat down on a stone,
so sweet he looked, so soft he sang.
Alas the day my love became
the famous flower of serving men.
The bloody tears they fell as rain
as still he sat and still he sang.
Alas the day my love became
the famous flower of serving men.
Our king cried out and he wept full sore,
so loud unto the dove he did call..
Oh pretty bird, come sing it plain
your tale of grief, your tale of pain.
Oh it was her mother's deadly spite,
for she sent thieves in the dark of the night.
They come to rob, they come to slay,
they made their sport, they went their way.
And don't you think that her heart was sore
as she laid the mould on his yellow hair.
And don't you think her heart was woe
as she turned her back away to go.
And how she wept as she changed her name
from Fair Eleanor to Sweet William.
Went to court to serve her king
as the famous flower of serving men.
The bloody tears they lay all around,
he's mounted up and away he's gone.
And one thought filled his mind,
the thought of her that was a man.
And as he's rode himself alone
a dreadful oath he there has sworn,
That he would hunt her mother down
as he would hunt the wildwood swine.
For there's four and twenty ladies all,
and they're all playing at the ball.
But fairer than all of them
is the famous flower of serving men.
Oh he's rode in, into his hall,
and he's rode in among them all.
He's lifted her to his saddle brim
and there he's kissed her cheek and chin.
The nobles stood and they stretched their eyes,
the ladies took to their fans and smiled,
For such a strange homecoming
no gentleman had ever seen.
And he has sent his nobles all,
and to her mother they have gone.
Ta'en her that did such wrong,
they've lain her down in prison strong.
And he's brought men up from the corn,
and he's sent men down to the thorn,
All for to build a bonfire high,
all for to set her mother by.
Bonny sang the morning thrush
all where he sat in yonder bush.
But louder did her mother cry
in the bonfire where she burned close by.
For there she stood all among the thorn
and there she sang her deadly song.
Alas the day that she became
the famous flower of serving men.
For the fire took first all on her cheek,
and there it took all on her chin.
It spat and rang in her yellow hair
and soon there was no life left in.
FAIR ELEANOR & SWEET WILLIAM
This is how it was.
So long a journey
from that place of bones
to this greenstick fire;
from the scattering
of the may blossom
to the bleeding
of this hawthorn crown.
This is how it was.
It is a spring night.
A hunter’s moon is trimming back the clouds.
A vixen cries in the coppice.
My baby suckles, eyes closed against the pulse of milk.
My lover lifts an apple bough into the fire.
And, noiseless from the steep stair,
five men are in my chamber
like wraiths who find their form only in firelight.
One has drawn his sword; the others bear
knives. Unhindered by passion,
free of guilt, they work like
men clearing brush in advance of a storm,
brisk and thorough, tight-lipped
and breathing hard.
My lover barely rises to his knees
and they cut him down, his mouth
in a gargoyle rictus, lipless and wrapped
around his jawline. Two more strokes
and his right hand goes spinning down
into the hearth like a shed glove.
And a silence thickens the air.
A light, green and glaucous,
like through deep water, traps us
in the moment. The men
breathing heavy still, like cattle
who have run the length of a field.
I am a dreamer, motionless, looking
beyond the moment. (I am
a child wrapped in white furs,
sleigh-bound across deep snow.
I am a lover bearing the blessed weight
of a lover on a bed of moss under pines).
But my baby moves in my arms;
he shifts his thick body
inside the plaid shawl that wraps him,
cranes his head to see our visitors
so as to smile his two small pearly teeth
at them, so as to fix his round
sea-blue eyes on them, so as
to welcome them to our hearth
with his two precious first words.
And he cuts him down.
With skill. It must be said,
with skill for his black blade
passes my face like a thing
half seen, half-imagined – the
swift parabola of a bird glanced
through a window, or a leaf blown
in a hard wind. I feel its dangerous breath
and I feel its spirit presence deep
within my cage of bones.
(I must feel it always).
And he makes no sound
as he passes from this place.
Was present, was absent
with no sense of the journey made.
(And this small grain of mercy,
dropped from the store
whose bounty it is God’s
to grant or to withhold,
is what I have hoarded
through the long years).
They turn to go, their black cloaks
gathered like Dominican shrouds,
save for the sword-bearer, the
baby-slayer. He throws back
his cowl and bares his face,
a lattice-work of scars, as if
one has some time seized his hair
behind and pushed his face
against a blacksmith’s grate.
My mother’s man, her seneschal,
and this her work; yet still
he does her will – this to forestall
the white dove’s prophecy that
the bastard son shall rise and rule.
And he breaks the sword
across his knee. Hilt and blade
sing off the stone they fall upon.
He turns and follows his companions
down the winding stair. The cough
of their falling feet like stones
cast down a well.
The earth at the moat’s edge
is soft with the night’s rain.
It yields to the broken sword,
its hilt and tongue of blade.
The winding sheet must be
the plaid shawl that wound me
through the winter by the fire
as I gave breast and crooned
the songs he took with him into
the moonlit places. The broken sword,
its hilt and tongue of blade
are the cross of Christ above
my boy. The bell that tolls him
through the gate of Eden is the
severed greater length of blade
struck hard against the mounting block
(from which I rode to hunt
the hind). The psalm is wound
into the wordless sounds, the feral
cries that ###
9:57:06 PM 
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