John Barleycorn

When he was a child, he poked his head

out of his frozen, earthy home

From the breast of his mother he fled

for his father's azure skies to roam.

Light did feed that body green

and turn his skin to pale gold

and little Sir John grew tall and lean

with the waning of the cold.

A flaxen beard Sir John did grow

and so matured from boy to man.

Three men from the west then did know

to go about their yearly plan.

They hacked his golden flesh from bone

and when they were done they said

that surely as the child had grown

John Barleycorn was dead.

And so they gathered in the grain

that they had made from Sir John's head.

With it they drank away their bane

and ground flour for their bread.

Yet the knight can't cut his enemy

without a little grain in his bowl

and so John Barleycorn proved to be

the strongest of them all.