Queen of Love - The Incredible String Band

A strong power calls from the left hand

Across the waters deep

a strong power calls from the left hand

let all things sleep or weep

oh the queen of love, you have unwove my eyes

and my heart will not sleep

the eye would sleep but the mind would rise

I must needs walk down God’s eyebrows

and along the street of his eyes

look for me and you will see me in my red cloak

swimming determined

as God’s blood flows

creatures of grief you beg from the thief

I will not carry home your sacks of sorrow

but I will pay the fiddler good silver if he smiles

pray God he see tomorrow

and the fine fine girls that are into it and my eyes with salt water swim

and we disputing with a brittle gaiety

upon the world’s rim

if I sought to love you with my body

it would be with a bent back

unto the day of doom

Oh the Queen of Love

I am in her heart

she is in my room

and together alone we clasp hands

and in each other’s eyes walk the endless shore

and below I have my duty to perform in the song

and that that I was

you will see it no more

the snow is on the hills of my heart

and to speak is to die

the men at arms do seek to mark me and the monks raise hue and cry

seek me in vain on Golgotha

or in fear’s hollow

for the way I take today

only the true may follow

the ancestors in stone armour

calling for loyalty untrue

seek to make a zigzag of the arrow’s flight

it is so swaddled in the bands of form

but I am girdled with the storm

and cloaked with the night

I am not to be seen or found

save only in what I cause

standing outside on the inside outside

perfectingness and flaws

how will I say where I end

or where you begin

how will I say, what shall I play

shall it be you or the wild wind

as Pan with the unsane eyes

or with the wild horns

or when I am crowned with the paper crown

or with the crown of thorns

a strong power compels distortion from the right hand

fleece to the grey wolves

fangs to the grey sheep

but the Queen of Love she strokes

my body alive, that I do not sleep.

The doctor brews potions and pills

to open his own front door

and the locksmith makes strong bolts

to bar his gates to every new breeze that blows

shall I now put lion’s ears upon my ears

hear every sound as a roar

shall I now put mouse’s eyes upon my eyes

gauge the moon for size against my paw

while the Queen of Love

she sings to me from above and beyond the world

and I observe my mind

it is playing ignorant boy

while at her feet I am curled

and I remember all female movements so well

of such a form to bring much joy and ease much care

to perfume and let fall the coloured gown

and to let down the curling hair.

But now I play seed thrower

and I will play three-legged man

I will play dream weaver and day bringer

and catch as catch can

While the Queen of Love

she swims like a silver dove in my mind’s room

and my body sleepwalks down the road

in a warm dark swoon