Patience of Love Lyric Sheet – Catherine Madsen

The Patience of Love (1982)

Callow youth, especially in an ideological time, does some regrettable things, but I don’t altogether disown this album. I should have had better voice lessons, and perhaps better sense than to spend my money on the project—and I should certainly have had better sense than to be distracted by the romance of Women’s (or Womyn’s) Culture—but one has to make one’s mistakes. The lyrics, on the whole, are ept.
One of the leading lights of the East Lansing folk scene declined to review the album because he deplored my “destroying tradition.” I think he overstated the case, or at least misunderstood loving appropriation and punning for destructiveness. In fact I was trying to preserve, not to destroy: to bring a certain kind of British folk sensibility and aesthetic with me into radical feminism, which I suspected would vehemently refuse it. I couldn’t quite dance at the revolution if I couldn’t dance to that music. It’s hard to see what kind of threat that quiet backwater activity could be to the tradition of Martin Carthy and Maddy Prior, who would always sell more albums than I would, and as better musicians deserved to.

Menstruation Ritual

On this day I proclaim
the flow of mystery
that joins all women’s lives
in consanguinity.

Let this blood be the sign
of our conspiracy
and mark the fallow ground
wherever we walk free.

Kore

(Tune: “Dark-Eyed Sailor,” learned from Steeleye Span’s Hark the Village Wait)

When snow was melting and mild was the air
from the West came walking a lady fair.
Long were her steps, her eyes were glad and bold,
and she spied the old one
and she spied the old one
who wept beside the road.

She said, Old woman, why do you mourn,
for the nights grow short and the spring comes on?
She answered sadly as her tears did flow:
For my only daughter
for my only daughter
who dwells in dark below.

Six winter moons have rolled since the day
the lord of dread appeared and stole her away.
He took her trembling to his stony cave
where no flower opens
where no flower opens
and sunlight sheds no ray.

And did you never give her up for lost,
or think her happy there beneath the frost?
Some say that fear can stir us to desire,
like the purple fireweed
like the purple fireweed
that flourish after fire.

I know my daughter and her mind is strong,
she will not perjure love to right this wrong.
Let streams run dry and rocks split with the sun,
I will seek my daughter
I will seek my daughter
and find where she has gone.

Look into my eyes, said the younger one:
I have come back from hell and brought the sun.
O mother, see, it climbs the whitening sky—
And they stood embracing
and they stood embracing
in sad and ancient joy.

And there is a field of fallow land,
together we sow the seed where corn shall stand.
Take hands and pace the land while women sing,
for the melting water
for the melting water
brings in the rising spring.

The Heretic Heart

(Tune: “Forest Green,” used for “O Little Town of Bethlehem” in the Oxford Book of Carols. In the lyrics, debts to Yeats, Chaucer’s Wife of Bath, and the general idea of the West African griot’s boasting song.)

I am a bold and a pagan soul
a-rattlin’ through this land,
I judge the world by my own lights
and I come by my own hand.
And if you ask me where I learned
to live so recklessly,
my skin, my bones, my heretic heart
are my authority.

My mother was a spinner of tales,
my father a dreaming man,
and I have swung on the dragon’s tongue
and danced on holy land.
I have sung the seed up out of the ground
and the bird down from the tree,
my skin, my bones, my heretic heart
are my authority.

Once I was found, but now I’m gone
away from the faithful fold,
the ones who preach that holiness
is to do what you are told.
Though law and scripture, priest and prayer
have all instructed me,
my skin, my bones, my heretic heart
are my authority.

Now they tell me Jesus loves me,
but I think he loves in vain.
He must go unrequited,
on me he has no claim.
For the man who would command me must
wear the horn and let me be:
my skin, my bones, my heretic heart
are my authority.

Then while I breathe this glorious air
an outlaw I’ll remain,
my body will not be subdued
and I will not be saved.
And if I cannot shout aloud
I’ll sing it secretly:
my skin, my bones, my heretic heart
are my authority.

Demeter

(Tune: owes a good deal to “Job” in the Oxford Book of Carols and “The Star of the County Down.” The first two lines of the third verse are borrowed from an English folk song I found in a book, I no longer remember where.)

My daughter’s daughter she has gone down
to study her father’s scorn,
and she was all my heart’s delight
from the day that she was born.
For as my mother lay dying
into my arms they bore
this tiny child so new and wise
love streamed from every pore.
And all the love I gave to her
she answered core to core.

O I have lived a weary life,
unwanted from my birth,
married too young, held back too long,
and cheated of my worth.
No man has ever been so strong
as I have learned to be,
yet my daughter’s daughter has gone to wait
on her father willingly.

Then shall neither fish swim in the flood
nor corn grow through the clay
till from the dark my daughter’s daughter
return again to me.
O she will heed her father’s voice
and it’s him her eyes shall see,
but my warmth will haunt her body still
and her heart will turn to me.

The Unwilling Bride

(Tune: “Polly on the Shore,” learned from Martin Carthy’s Shearwater)

One night in my own narrow bed,
one morning till the change comes to me:
tomorrow the people will watch me up the aisle
and married I shall be.

I never intended for to wed,
but only to lie in his bed,
but my parents they call me a weakling and a fool,
and he speaks of marriage with no dread.

He’s a soft and a gentle young man,
but his life goes another way from mine,
and why should we bind what we only should enjoy
or consecrate a love that’s merely kind?

Long ago in the thin northern air
a promise was a thing I understood:
with my body I worshipped the rolling of the hills
and the valleys called out my first blood.

O tell their names all again:
Chena Ridge rising dark in the west,
Goldstream and Tanana, crested Ester Dome,
and Denali the mother of the mist.

They took me back to the city smoke.
Not once did I try to run away.
My promise was broken beneath me on the wheels
of the car that carried me away.

Then lead me to the altar with your march
and call me a liar and a whore:
my promise was broken, was broken on the wheels,
and I never can promise any more.

One night in my own narrow bed,
one morning till my shame comes to me:
tomorrow the people will watch me up the aisle
and married I shall be.

Now the Green Blade Riseth

(The tune and first verse are from the Oxford Book of Carols. The third verse is largely wishful thinking.)

Now the green blade riseth from the buried grain,
Wheat that in the dark earth many days has lain.
Love lives again
That with the dead has been,
Love is come again like wheat that springeth green.

Now the spirit stirreth at the stricken root,
From the rotted tree-stump springs a living shoot.
Mold, muck and clay
Bring forth the green of May,
Love is come again like wheat that springeth green.

In the earth they laid them in a barren place,
Witches from the burning, nameless and erased.
Rising again
Their ashes fed the grain,
We are come again like wheat that springeth green.

Now the waste land bloometh from the hidden bud,
In the rocky desert rivers brim and flood.
Dry bones will sing
The quickening of spring,
Love is come again like wheat that springeth green.

Pretty Polly

(Music and lyrics traditional.)

I courted pretty Polly the livelong night,
Courted pretty Polly the livelong night,
And I left her in the morning before it was light.

Pretty Polly, pretty Polly, come go ’long with me,
Polly, pretty Polly, come go ’long with me
Before we get married, some pleasure to see.

She jumped up behind him and away they did go,
Jumped up behind him and away they did go
Over the mountains and the valleys so low.

Oh Willie, oh Willie, I’m afeared for my life,
Willie, oh Willie, I’m afeared for my life,
I’m afraid you mean to murder me and leave me behind.

Pretty Polly, pretty Polly, you guessed it about right,
Polly, pretty Polly, you guessed it about right,
I’ve been digging your grave for the best part of last night.

She knelt down before him, pleading for her life,
Knelt down before him, pleading for her life,
Oh, let me be a single girl if I can’t be your wife.

He stabbed her to the heart and her heart-blood did flow,
Stabbed her to the heart and her heart-blood did flow,
And into the grave pretty Polly did go.

He threw a little dirt over her and started for home,
Threw a little dirt over her and started for home,
Leaving nobody there but the wild birds to moan.

Welcome the Wind

Welcome the wind and clear sunshine,
the clouds are sailing so high,
they say good friends must love and play sometime,
why not you and I?

Rise up my love and go with me
exulting after the night,
making our way through fields of goldenrod
in the morning light.

So glad that I was ever born
and did not fall or die young,
else I would never have known your smiling face
or your loving tongue.

Look up and down that lonesome road
that travels into the sun,
where all good friends and you and I must go
when our loving’s done.

Welcome the wind and clear sunshine,
the freshest face of the dawn,
I’ll never lose or understand the joy
that we balance on.

Yesterday in the morning grey

(Tune: “Reynardine,” learned from Martin Carthy’s Prince Heathen. First verse from a book on English folk songs I’ve forgotten. In the following lyrics, debts to the Bible, Dante, and the Episcopal Hymnal.)

Yesterday in the morning grey
parted poor Tom and I;
I heard a bird singing in the wood,
poor Tom was like to die.

My father he is dead, says he,
the cup has passed to me,
filled with such bitter water
I cannot drink willingly.

Great pity was his dying,
his body weak and wild,
his mind in endless motion
and greedy as a child.

O daughter, I’ve known you thirty years
and at last I understand
that you will bear no children
and will not love a man.

What witchlands have you traveled in,
or looked upon what sea,
that you have gone for solace
so far, so far from me?

O father, I honor all your words,
for you and I both own
the love that moves the earthquake
and strips the whitened bone.

Time like an ever-flowing stream
bears all its sons away,
and its daughters are the narrow boats
they ride into the spray.

But I have been to the river’s head
in the marshlands where it lay;
I buried my face in the curly grass
till the breaking of the day.

And you have stood in the morning grey
watching silently
till time shall ride on the river
and send the cup to me.

Yesterday in the morning grey
parted poor Tom and I,
and all the birds fell silent
and the water glided by.

My love is a garden enclosed

(Music by Judith Anderson. Words adapted from the Song of Songs.)

My love is a garden enclosed,
a sealed fountain,
a well of living water,
and all green is our bed.

When light was dark at morning

(Tune adapted from Jean Redpath’s version of “The Bonny Boy is Young.” The line “O the patience of love it began to overflow” is from one of the numerous books on English folk songs I was reading and not keeping track of at the time.)

When light was dark at morning and the dew lay on the land
I woke my love without a word before the day began;
her face was weary, and her hair was wound in tangled strands,
and her touch was like a welcome, so loving was her hand.

And as we lay there waking we talked a little while
of how the spring was stirring in the branches mile on mile
and how the world went rolling over, full of grief and guile,
and all my thoughts were answered by the brightness of her smile.

O the patience of love it began to overflow;
I held her body close to me and stroked her still and slow;
O from her hands the rivers ran with salt and streaming glow
and time itself was altered before we let it go.

O I wish that we were traveling some steep and rainy hill
where we might hear in silence the thrush call loud and shrill,
to smell the brown leaves on the ground, to rest and talk our fill,
and I’ll laugh and lie beside her whenever my love will.

Allu mari mi portati

(Tune: “Resurrezione” from Laudario 91 di Cortone, a 13th-century musical manuscript recorded in the mid-1960s by the Societá Cameristica di Lugano [Nonesuch H-71086]. The words of the chorus are cited by Mary Daly in Gyn/Ecology [p. 211] as the hymn sung by women in the Neapolitan area of Italy during epidemics of suicide during the fifteenth through seventeenth centuries. Daly infers that these events were efforts to escape the witch persecutions of the same period. For my eventual opinion of Mary Daly, see TKTK

Allu mari mi portati
Se voleti che mi sanati,
Allu mari, alla via,
Cosí m’ama la donna mia.
Allu mari, allu mari,
Mentre campo t’aggio amari.

To the sea, to the sea let me follow
to save me from burning and heal my sorrow,
taking the way of sand and water,
the tideway, the last way to love my mother.
Allu mari, allu mari,
Mentre campo t’aggio amari.

Down the dunes with sister and stranger,
the wicked women who dance in their danger,
craving the blessing all together
of grass and seaweed, shell and feather.
Allu mari, allu mari,
Mentre campo t’aggio amari.

So in love does my lady enjoy me
that death by drowning cannot destroy me.
Life on the tide will run before me,
the long wave, the grey wave will cry my story.

Allu mari mi portati
Se voleti che mi sanati,
Allu mari, alla via,
Cosí m’ama la donna mia.
Allu mari, allu mari,
Mentre campo t’aggio amari.

The Ballad of Pauline and Periel

(Tune: Willy O’Winsbury, learned from the Pentangle album Solomon’s Seal. The names Pauline and Periel are from Charles Williams’ novel Descent into Hell.)

As I walked out one misty night
In the falling of the year
I saw two women standing by,
Their eyes were bright with tears.

And the one says Love, forgive me now
For the times I mistrusted you:
I could not measure all your worth
Till my own was proven true.

Through trouble and grief we found each other
When the truth was the bitterest pain;
Two years are short to heal such wounds,
And the scars will still remain,

Yet here we stand and hold each other
As though touch were enough,
As though our bodies spoke for us
As it is certain our speech makes love.

And the other says, We travel the road
Laid out for us of old,
For even when I feared you, love,
This hour had been foretold.

And what is love but the balance beam
And the dance so long to learn,
The diamond with its cutting edge
That began as a young green fern?

And the room is lit with yellow lamps,
And the bed is cool and white;
They will lie awake in each other’s arms
All the hours of the rainy night.

Turn Again

From the longest, mildest day,
from the sunlight turn away,
Turn again, turn again,
in your courses turn again.

To the harvest rich and warm,
apple, onion, bean and corn,
Turn again, turn again,
in your courses turn again.

To the fall with rain and cold,
yellow leaves and berries gold,
Turn again, turn again,
in your courses turn again.

To the winter white and brown,
draggled clouds come snowing down;
Turn again, turn again,
in your courses turn again.

Maid and mother mild and strong,
crone that hurries life along,
Turn again, turn again,
in your courses turn again.

Not our comfort but your will
is the year we live by still.
Turn again, turn again,
in your courses turn again.

From the longest, mildest day,
from the sunlight turn away,
Turn again, turn again,
in your courses turn again.