Crazy Jane and the Bishop
Crazy Jane and the Bishop - meaning Summary
Desire Versus Respectability
Yeats's poem stages Crazy Jane as a blunt, erotic speaker who defies a righteous Bishop and defends her dead lover Jack. Its repeated refrain All find safety in the tomb
gives a fatalistic tone while underscoring her refusal to surrender bodily desire to clerical judgment. The poem contrasts earthy sexuality and personal loyalty with social and religious respectability, exposing hypocrisy through Jane's vivid, confrontational voice.
Bring me to the blasted oak That I, midnight upon the stroke, (All find safety in the tomb.) May call down curses on his head Because of my dear Jack that's dead. Coxcomb was the least he said: The solid man and the coxcomb. Nor was he Bishop when his ban Banished Jack the Journeyman, (All find safety in the tomb.) Nor so much as parish priest, Yet he, an old book in his fist, Cried that we lived like beast and beast: The solid man and the coxcomb. The Bishop has a skin, God knows, Wrinkled like the foot of a goose, (All find safety in the tomb.) Nor can he hide in holy black The heron's hunch upon his back, But a birch-tree stood my Jack: The solid man and the coxcomb. Jack had my virginity, And bids me to the oak, for he (all find safety in the tomb.) Wanders out into the night And there is shelter under it, But should that other come, I spit: The solid man and the coxcomb.
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