Willow Song

Program Notes
[forthcoming]

Willow Song
Anne Stevenson

I went down to the railway
But the railway wasn't there.
A long scar lay across the waste
Bound up with vetch and maiden hair,
And birdsfoot trefoil everywhere.
But the clover and the sweet hay
The cranesbill and the yarrow
Were as nothing to the rose bay
the rose bay, the rose bay,
As nothing to the rose bay willow.

I went down to the river
But the river wasn't there.
A hill of slag lay in its course
With pennycress and cocklebur
And thistles bristling with fur.
But ragweed, dock and bitter may
And hawkbit in the hollow
Were as nothing to the rose bay, 
the rose bay, the rose bay,
As nothing to the rose bay willow.

I went down to find my love,
My sweet love wasn't there.
A shadow stole into her place
And spoiled the loosestrife of her hair,
And counselled me to pick despair.
Old elder and young honesty
Turned ashen, but their sorrow
Were as nothing to the rose bay,
            the rose bay, the rose bay,
As nothing to the rose bay willow.

Oh I remember summer
When the hemlock was in leaf.
The sudden poppies by the path
Were little pools of crimson grief.
Sick henbane cowered like a thief.
But self-heal sprang up in her way,
And mignonette's light yellow,
To flourish with the rose bay,
the rose bay, the rose bay.
To flourish with the rose bay willow.

Its flames took all the wasteland
And all the river's silt,
But as my dear grew thin and grey,
They turned as white as salt or milk,
Great purples withered out of guilt,
And bright weeks blew away
In cloudy wreathes of summer snow.
And the first one was the rose bay
            the rose bay, the rose bay.
The first one was the rose bay willow.

from Anne Stevenson, Collected Poems (Bloodaxe Books, 2023)
Reproduced with permission of Bloodaxe Books
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