The Best (Anonymous) Poem in English, Ever.
400 years ago, a brazenly braggadocious begging ‘bedlamite’ possibly penned a poem so incantatorily-poignant, so wonder-woundedly-written, so symmetrically and cognitively bruising, that it demands to be memorized and chanted aloud. Let's dive into the song of Tom O'Bedlam. ⇓ ⇓ ⇓Tom O'Bedlam's SongI. From the hag and hungry goblinThat into rags would rend ye,The spirit that stands by the naked manIn the Book of Moons defend ye,That of your five sound sensesYou never be forsaken,Nor wander from your selves with Tom Abroad to beg your bacon,While I do sing, Any food, any feeding,Feeding, drink, or clothing;Come dame or maid, be not afraid,Poor Tom will injure nothing.II.Of thirty bare years have ITwice twenty been enragèd,And of forty been three times fifteenIn durance soundly cagèdOn the lordly lofts of Bedlam,With stubble soft and dainty,Brave bracelets strong, sweet whips ding-dong,With wholesome hunger plenty,And now I sing, Any food, any feeding,Feeding, drink, or clothing;Come dame or maid, be not afraid,Poor Tom will injure nothing.III.With a thought I took for MaudlinAnd a cruse of cockle pottage,With a thing thus tall, sky bless you all,I befell into this dotage.I slept not since the Conquest,Till then I never wakèd,Till the roguish boy of love where I layMe found and stript me nakèd.And now I sing, Any food, any feeding,Feeding, drink, or clothing;Come dame or maid, be not afraid,Poor Tom will injure nothing.IV.When I short have shorn my sow's faceAnd swigged my horny barrel,In an oaken inn I pound my skinAs a suit of gilt apparel;The moon's my constant mistress,And the lowly owl my marrow;The flaming drake and the night crow makeMe music to my sorrow.While I do sing, Any food, any feeding,Feeding, drink, or clothing; Come dame or maid, be not afraid,Poor Tom will injure nothing.V.The palsy plagues my pulsesWhen I prig your pigs or pullen,Your culvers take, or matchless makeYour Chanticleer or Sullen.When I want provant with HumphreyI sup, and when benighted,I repose in Paul's with waking soulsYet never am affrighted.But I do sing, Any food, any feeding,Feeding, drink, or clothing;Come dame or maid, be not afraid,Poor Tom will injure nothing.VI. I know more than Apollo,For oft, when he lies sleepingI see the stars at bloody warsIn the wounded welkin weeping;The moon embrace her shepherd,And the Queen of Love her warrior,While the first doth horn the star of morn,And the next the heavenly Farrier.While I do sing, Any food, any feeding,Feeding, drink, or clothing;Come dame or maid, be not afraid,Poor Tom will injure nothing.VII. The gypsies, Snap and Pedro,Are none of Tom's comradoes,The punk I scorn and the cutpurse sworn,And the roaring boy's bravadoes.The meek, the white, the gentleMe handle, touch, and spare not;But those that cross Tom RynosserosDo what the panther dare not.Although I sing, Any food, any feeding,Feeding, drink, or clothing; Come dame or maid, be not afraid,Poor Tom will injure nothing.VIII.With a host of furious fanciesWhereof I am commander,With a burning spear and a horse of air,To the wilderness I wander.By a knight of ghosts and shadowsI summoned am to tourneyTen leagues beyond the wide world's end:Methinks it is no journey.Yet will I sing, Any food, any feeding,Feeding, drink, or clothing;Come dame or maid, be not afraid,Poor Tom will injure nothing.---------------------------------------Original Harold Bloom interview: https://youtu.be/EVWiwd0P0c0?si=WkhOdDTNrPwp14WS✦🔮Become a super secret Glitch Bottle supporter! 🔮►https://www.patreon.com/glitchbottle♫ Music by the artist Crowander (track name: “Tornado”) -https://soundcloud.com/crowander -https://crowander.bandcamp.com/ -https://soundcloud.com/crowander/tornado00:00 Intro05:17 Verse I.08:18 Verse II.11:04 Verse III.12:31 Verse IV.14:48 verse V.17:00 Verse VI.19:23 Verse VII.22:38 Verse VII.25:29 Concluding Thoughts
