Lyrics

Daffyd's Lament

A plague upon the women of this parish
What’s wrong that they don’t want me?
Not just the girls—the wives, and widows
It’s unnatural, it’s villainy

Time was they thought it was no shame
To meet with me in the old birch wood
And exhaust each other making love
That was long and loud and good

They came there naturally as the deer
I’d say two a day was average
But that was before their hearts turned dark
And before their tongues turned savage—listen:

(The Girls)
To lie between a maiden’s legs, that’s the one thing on his mind
Look in his eyes, the fires of lust are all that you will find
But let him come with his tricks of verse, he’ll have nothing but our curse

In church I turn my neck from God
To survey the congregation
For the lovely ones whose lips and eyes
I once called my salvation

The ones whose praise I’d sing in verse
Through all the hills of Wales
The dark-browed ones whose names would ring
Through all the peaks a vales

But they return my look as though
I was out of my aging head
And I’ve only a crick in my neck to show
And this cold and empty bed

(The Girls)

Now instead of thrush and nightingale
The magpie visits me and says
Stop raving in rhyme about pretty girls
Cease your jabbering poetry

All your chatter won’t change that graying head
So here’s a course for your adoption
Become a hermit, that’s the one job left
For a man who’s run out of options

The monks and friars tell me the same:
“Make your songs of sin no more”
But still I stand here stung by rain
And sing outside her door (what else is this life for?)

(The Girls)