I have always loved Led Zeppelin’s Battle of Evermore, a song full of Tolkienesque imagery and mythic allegory. But I never knew until recently that Sandy Denny, the woman who sang the original backing vocal with Robert Plant, was the only backup singer ever featured on a Zeppelin album.
I listened to this song often when I was high in school in high school, but somehow the magic of it has intensified with the passing of time. I have been recently obsessed with rediscovering many Led Zep songs. The mandolin melody that begins this one has been pushing me to the brink of melancholic crisis in the last several days, and my esteem for the musical prowess of the band has grown. My eyes fill with tears at times and I feel like a neurotic fool but it is all redeemed by the magic of this song; something about the progression of the chords and plucked strings in the first bars sends me over the edge.
The mandolin melody calls to mind E.A. Poe’s Israfel . . .
I bring to your attention three versions of this song.
But first (since this is a poetry blog) the LYRICS:
The Queen of Light took her bough, and then she turned to go The Prince of Peace embraced the gloom, and walked the night alone Oh, dance in the dark of night / Sing to the morning light The dark Lord rides in force tonight, and time will tell us all Oh, throw down your plow and hoe, rest not to lock your homes Side by side we wait the might of the darkest of them all . . .
I hear the horses’ thunder, down in the valley below I’m waiting for the angels of Avalon, waiting for the eastern glow The apples of the valley hold the seeds of happiness The ground is rich from tender care; repay, do not forget no, no Oh, dance in the dark of night / Sing to the morning light The apples turn to brown and black, the tyrant’s face is red War is the common cry, pick up you swords and fly The sky is filled with good and bad and mortals never know Oh, well, the night is long, the beads of time pass slow Tired eyes on the sunrise, waiting for the eastern glow The pain of war cannot exceed the woe of aftermath The drums will shake the castle wall, the ring-wraiths ride in black, ride on Sing as you raise your bow, shoot straighter than before No comfort has the fire at night that lights the face so cold Oh dance in the dark of night, sing to the morning light The magic runes are writ in gold to bring the balance back
bring it back . . .
At last the sun is shining, the clouds of blue roll by With flames from the dragon of darkness the sunlight blinds his eyes
The dawn is nigh at hand. The clouds
begin to lift above the grange.
Arise, O Phoebus, bless the crowds—
let poultry roam the range.
I’ll bind a broom of gathered hay
to sweep the hen-house free of hate.
Let roosters hail the crack of day
and chicks with cocks tempt fate.
A fractured self and a challenge hurled:
they left the shell—but found it rough
because our bigoted barnyard world
cannot get queer enough fast enough.
They flutter through the breeder’s farm
subverting gender’s useless role.
We feel their pain, and mean no harm,
yet question this progressive goal.
They cluck a brand-new barnyard song: Gender Identity Obsolete!
(As long as they claim God hatched them wrong,
biology signals their defeat.)
While poultry scratches rhymes for “hen”
and chicks are combing crests for cocks
let’s ring the dinner bell and then
we’ll synchronize the global clocks.
Let Mankind’s unmanned race delight
at Jesus’ gender-free return.
Soon Africa shall see the light
and Araby’s sun more brightly burn.
Then dawn shall break o’er Russian plains
to liberate the Tartar races;
loose their limbs from Gender’s chains
to stride with polymorphous paces.
China too, and Southeast Asia
swift shall follow in their train
celebrating sex-aphasia
joining in the West’s refrain.
Hindu multitudes will rise
to vanquish gender, caste aside
and shake the slumber from their eyes
with metro-ambisexual pride.
Carib isles, with Latin kingdoms
From the tropics to the mountains
Shall announce they too are Wisdom’s,
drinking from de-gendered fountains.
Juveniles, raised to simply be
shall pioneer new modes of life;
explore horizons happily
set free from biologic strife.
Then shall our earth, in glad array
spade dirt upon Tradition’s tomb;
unshackled from that dark dismay
to grieve — but nevermore exhume.
Alas, the global dreams descend.
We’re back in the barnyard, gender-queer . . .
where hens have cocks and eggshells bend
transcending Nature’s reign of fear.
The henhouse still votes hetero—
their eggless chickens cluck for rights
biologists, ex utero
are born to further futile flights.
(Because I was almost one of them
I’ve earned the right to make fun of them.
Time alone will tell if the trend
remains coherent to the end.)
Evil Drumpf Hitler, worse than Watergate . . .
Orange Man bad— ’tis their hour to impeach!
Colluding, they rush to regurgitate
Nonsense from their last non-candidate’s speech.
Accusations and trials. It’s quite a show.
He’s guilty, so guilty, of serious crime.
They’re not sure of what, but he HAS to go.
(Their permanent peeve is our circus-time.)
Through dark lenses, opthalmologically:
They can hate on our optics; we won’t mind
Our magic glasses allow us to see
With twenty-twenty vision . . . but they’re still blind.
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