Crazy Jane and Jack the Journeyman

    I tremble¹ to the bone，

    The more I leave the door unlatched

    The sooner love is gone，

    For love is but a skein unwound

    Between the dark and dawn.

    A lonely ghost the ghost is

    That to God shall come；

    I—love‘s skein upon the ground，

    My body in the tomb—

    Shall leap² into the light lost

    In my mother‘s womb.

    But were I left to lie alone

    In an empty bed，

    The skein so bound³ us ghost to ghost

    When he turned his head

    Passing on the road that night，

    Mine would walk being dead.