Elegy: James Douglas Morrison

Sourdough Jackson

Deirdre and Eogan and Conchobar
Ride the King's Road in an open car.
Deirdre stands proud as the car scrapes the walls.
The clearance is low; the bright lady falls.
Swept to the road, she's gone for a ghost,
Gone in the night on the Golden Coast.

Who, now, shall mourn for Usna's dead?
Who will drink poteen o'er Deirdre's fair head?
Her sorrow is spent, her howling is done,
For Alan and Arden and Naoise are gone.
Swept as if mines, they're gone for a ghost,
Gone in the night on the Golden Coast.

A spirit in frenzy arises from flames,
A poet out seeking the elder gods' names.
A swan in a duck-nest, a bow strung and drawn,
A druid a-singing to greet the pale dawn.
Swept by a vision, he chases a ghost
To exile, out on the Golden Coast.

Shaman and singer, he screams to the skies
His pain and his vision. An arrow, he flies
Attended by Serpents, by Lizards, by Pan-
Fair Deirdre's returned in the guise of a man.
Swept by her spirit, possessed by a ghost,
He leads the fey young of the Golden Coast.

In Eogan and Conchobar's car they now go,
He stands proud, defiant, where clearance is low.
The arrow has fallen, the sorrow has burned.
Who, now, will mourn the grave howler returned?
Swept by her darkness, he's gone for a ghost.
The Druid, the Changer, the Poteen-mad Host
Is gone in the night on the Golden Coast.