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.
About the Creator
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Creative writing student @ University of Winchester | 19 | UK
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