Down in the green hay
Where monkey and bear usually lay,
They woke from a stable-boy's cry.
He said, "Someone come quick!
The horses got loose, got grass-sick!
They'll founder! Fain, they'll die!"
What is now known by the sorrel and the roan?
By the chestnut, and the bay, and the gelding grey?
It is: stay by the gate you are given
And remain in your place for your season,
And had the overfed dead but listened
To that high-fence, horse-sense, wisdom...
"Did you hear that, Bear?" said monkey,
"We'll get out of here, fair and square!
They've left the gate open wide!
"So, my bride
Here is my hand, where is your paw?
Try and understand my plan, Ursula.
My heart is a furnace;
Full of love that's just and earnest.
Now you know that we must unlearn this
Allegiance to a life of service,
And no longer answer to that heartless
Hay-monger, nor be his accomplice
(That charlatan, with artless hustling!),
But Ursula, we've got to eat something
And earn our keep, while still within
The borders of the land that man has girded
(All double-bolted and tightfisted!)
Until we reach the open country
A-steeped in milk and honey
"Will you keep your fancy clothes on for me?
Can you bear a little longer to wear that leash?
My love, I swear by the air I breathe:
Sooner or later, you'll bare your teeth
"But for now, just dance, darling.
C'mon, will you dance, my darling?
Darling, there's a place for us;
Can we go, before I turn to dust?
Oh my darling, there's a place for us.
Oh darling,
C'mon will you dance, my darling?
Oh, the hills are groaning with excess
Like a table ceaselessly being set.
Oh my darling, we will get there yet."
They trooped past the guards,
Past the coops, and the fields, and the farmyards
All night, 'til finally
The space they gained grew
Much farther than the stone that bear threw
To mark where they'd stop for tea.
But walk a little faster
And don't look backwards;
Your feast is to the East, which lies a little past the pasture.
When the blackbirds hear tea whistling, they rise and clap,
And their applause caws the kettle black,
And we can't have none of that!
Move along, Bear; there, there, that’s that
(Though cast in plaster,
Our Ursula's heart beat faster
Than monkey's ever will).
But still,
They have got to pay the bills,
Hadn't they?
That is what the monkey'd say.
So, with the courage of a clown, or a cur,
Or a kite, jerking tight at its tether,
In her dun-brown gown of fur
And her jerkin of swan's down and leather
Bear would sway on her hind legs;
The organ would grind dregs of song, for the pleasure
Of the children, who'd shriek,
Throwing coins at her feet
Then recoiling in terror.
"Sing, dance, darling.
C'mon, will you dance, my darling?
Oh darling, there's a place for us;
Can we go, before I turn to dust?
Oh my darling, there’s a place for us.
"Oh darling,
C'mon, will you dance, my darling?
You keep your eyes fixed on the highest hill
Where you'll ever-after eat your fill.
Oh my darling, dear, mine,
If you dance,
Dance, darling, I'll love you still"
Deep in the night
Shone a weak and miserly light
Where the monkey shouldered his lamp.
Someone had told him
The bear had been wandering
A fair piece away from where they were camped.
Someone had told him
The bear'd been sneaking away
To the seaside caverns, to bathe.
And the thought troubled the monkey
For he was afraid of spelunking down in those caves,
Also afraid what the village people would say
If they saw the bear in that state;
Lolling and splashing obscenely,
Well, it seemed irrational, really: washing that face
Washing that matted and flea-bit pelt
In some sea-spit-shine, old kelp dripping with brine.
But monkey just laughed, and he muttered,
"When she comes back, Ursula will be bursting with pride."
'Til I jump up,
Saying: you've been rolling in muck!
Saying: you smell of garbage and grime!
But far out,
Far out,
By now,
By now,
Far out, by now, Bear ploughed
'Cause she would not drown.
First the outside-legs of the bear
Up and fell down in the water like knobby garters.
Then the outside-arms of the bear
Fell off as easy as if sloughed from boiled tomatoes
Low'red in a genteel curtsy.
Bear shed the mantle of her diluvian shoulders,
And, with a sigh, she allowed the burden of belly
To drop like an apron full of boulders.
If you could hold up her threadbare coat to the light
Where it's worn translucent in places,
You'd see spots where almost every night of the year
Bear had been mending suspending that baseness.
Now her coat drags through the water,
Bagging, with a life's-worth of hunger, limitless minnows
In the magnetic embrace,
Balletic and glacial of Bear's insatiable shadow.
Left there!
Left there!
When Bear left Bear,
Left there!
Left there!
When Bear stepped clear of Bear...
(Sooner or later, you'll bare your teeth...)