An old woman weeds a grave,
beneath a hush of ancient trees,
her brown hands so gentle with this soil.

And she thinks of all the love that’s flown:
those proud dandelions of the sun,
turned to stooping worlds of grey,

then blown to ghosts upon the wind,
so love anew might grow again,
though far away, and not for her.

And in her heart she cries for love —
and Something hears, then someone comes:
he strides the graves on tall green stilts,

his hair a swirl of shining gold
and lifts her in his furry arms
up the stairs of a graveyard house.

He sings his song in a voice like cream,
as he climbs on past the roofs and hills,
heedless of the winds that roar,

that sway the stairs beyond the stars.
Then he comes at last to a fire-lit room
and howls with love and slams the door.

I went to bed with a wandering girl,
her dark hair shone with glints of moon
and we played at love in my room of red,
till midnight rang and the stars came down.
When we went to sleep I gladly dreamed
that we played at love in a room of green.

But in that dream I fell asleep
and dreamt we lay in a room of black,
then the black door opened and a man stood there:
It is my husband screamed the girl,
the one I've feared for seven years,
he's come to take my soul from me.

We woke at once in the room of green,
My soul has gone! she cried in fear,
then the green door opened and a man came in:
It is my husband shrieked the girl,
The one I've fled these seven years,
he's come to take my love from me.

And when we woke in the room of red,
she trembled as she clung to me:
O husband where's my lover gone?
I looked around, no word I said,
but rent her limbs with smoking hands,
then closed the door on that room so red.