From Bertolt Brecht Poems 1913-1956, Early Poems and Psalms 1913-1920, p. 5-7
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When springtime came and the sea was blue
(Her heart kept beating so)
There came on board with the last boat
A girl named Evelyn Roe.
She wore a hair shirt next her skin
Which was unearthly fair.
She wore no gold or ornament
Except her wondrous hair.
'Oh Captain, take me with you to the Holy Land
I must go to Jesus Christ.'
'We'll take you because we are fools and you are
Of women the loveliest.'
'May He reward you. I'm only a poor girl.
My soul belongs to Christ our Lord.'
'Then give your sweet body to us, my dear
The Lord you love cannot pay for you
Because He is long since dead.'
They sailed along in sun and wind
And they loved Evelyn Roe.
She ate their bread and drank their wine
And wept as she did so.
They danced by night. They danced by day
They left the helm alone.
Evelyn Roe was so sweet and so soft:
They were harder than stone.
The springtime went. The summer passed.
At night she ran in worn-out shoes
In the grey light from mast to mast
And looked for peaceful shore
Poor girl, poor Evelyn Roe.
She danced at night. She danced by day
And she was sick and tired.
'Oh, Captain, when shall we get there
To the city of our Lord?'
The captain was lying in her lap
And kissed her and laughed too.
'If someone's to blame if we never get there
That someone is Evelyn Roe.'
She danced at night. She danced by day.
And she was deathly tired.
They were sick of her from the captain down
To the youngest boy on board.
She wore a silk dress next her skin
Which was rough with scabs and sores
And round her blemished forehead hung
A filthy tangle of hair.
'I shall never see you, Christ my Lord
My flesh is too sinful for you.
You cannot come to a common whore
And I am a bad woman now.'
She ran for hours from mast to mast
And her heart and her feet were sore
Till one dark night when no one watched
She went to find that shore.
That was in chilly January
She swam a long way in cold seas
And it isn't till March or even April
That the buds come out on the trees.
She gave herself to the dark waves, and they
Washed her white and fair
Now she will reach the Holy Land
Before the captain is there.
In spring when she came to Heaven's gates
Saint Peter slammed them to.
'God has told me he will not have
The harlot Evelyn Roe.'
But when she came to the gates of Hell
She found they'd bolted them to.
The Devil shouted 'I will not have
The pious Evelyn Roe.'
So she wandered through wind and through starry space
Not knowing where to go.
Late one evening I saw her crossing a field:
She stumbled often. She never stood still.
Poor girl, poor Evelyn Roe.
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Ars vivendi ad infinitum.
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