The Fool

I play the role of a fool The townsfolk's fulcrum of ridicule Oft to appear through prisming beer To the newly arrived here Not as I am, but how they prefer I saw Ruth atop a dun Clydesdale In a pilgrim's caravan Queuing at the toll-house now and then Revealed by a sheet of lightning My heart stolen in a flash Morning up, I went to their camp A cross-eyed juvenile ushered me to the orchard Where she lay sketching the spires of the college And bade me welcome, as if we were old friends Ruth and I were inseparable Over the course of that haunted spring Our midnight trysts unquietly twisted The blade of our bodies in a wound Made several hundred lifespans ago At the end of a skull-lined avenue In the almshouse catacombs She looked me in the eye, and sadly sighed "My darling, I don't want this to happen anymore" Love is old, older than the sun A dreadful magic, more powerful than evil Love, love is old, older than the sun The impossible engine of a hidden world Down at the wharf, I watched them load Their frightened animals aboard a waiting fly boat I hurled my bottle of wine into its foamy wake And made a promise I could never not break Love is old, older than the sun A dreadful magic, more powerful than evil Love, love is old, older than the sun Older than the sun, oh-ah-ah-ah Love, love is old, ah-ah-ah-ah Love, love is old, ah-ah-ah Ah-ah-ah-ah-ah, ah-ah-ah Love is old, love is old Love, love is older, older than the sun