In the bowels of old Georgian houses Bodies are wrapped in routine Peeling the weekly allowance While Billie Holiday whispers in the corner Using one another as canvases Happily absorbing every single brush stroke Subterranean skin pressed on subterranean skin While Billie Holiday whispers in the corner What could beat it for a life? Seldom-seen creatures of comfort Are leaning toward the light And the heirs are returning from their fruitless flight Dublin mumbles in the morning Yeah, well, she buckles in the night Out there in the middle distance Some old woman is claiming To be the last living suffragette Speaking in a nebulized voice While she picks and she plucks a busted violin Oh, by a stained glass window Wearing nothing nothing nothing But trousers of bottle-green tweed A young mesmeric who's just lost his marbles In a haze of hashish and chamomile tea Into his gob, a cigarette is lobbed Forsake sickness for ill health Stick a few pound in an Irish Independent Send it to me by post, my friend What could beat it for a life? Seldom-seen creatures of comfort Are leaning toward the light Dublin mumbles in the morning Yeah, well, she buckles in the night I hear the meaning of life has been written down On the back of a holy picture In a boxing club in town Some say the men of the ocean As they lie and they lie and they lie And they lie amongst the waves I will act as mediator For this score and tree While they compose their manifesto Read my kitchen table over cups of tar-like tea What could beat it for a life? Seldom-seen creatures of comfort Are moving toward the light And the heirs are returning from their fruitless flight Dublin mumbles in the morning Yeah, well, she buckles in the night Dublin mumbles in the morning Yeah, well, she buckles in the night