William Walton
Aubade
Jane, Jane
Tall as a crane
The morning light creaks down again;

Comb your cockscomb-ragged hair
Jane, Jane, Come down the stair

Each dull blunt wooden stalactite
Of rain creaks, hardened by the light

Sounding like an overtone
From some lonely world unknown

But the creaking empty light
Will never harden into sight

Will never penetrate your brain
With overtoncs like the blunt rain

The light would show
(if it could harden)
Eternities of kitchen garden

Cockscomb flowers
That none will pluck
And wooden flowers
That 'gin to cluck

In the kitchen you must light
Flames as staring, red and white

As carrots or as turnips, shining
Where the old dawn light lies whining

Cockscomb hair on the cold wind
Hangs limp
Turns the milk's weak mind...
Jane, Jane
Tall as a crane
The morning light
Creaks down again!