I believe that you heard your master sing
when I was sick in bed
I suppose that he told you everything
that I keep locked away in my head
Your master took you travelling
well at least that's what you said
And now do you come back to bring
your prisoner wine and bread

Leonard Cohen borrows recognisable touches from the Eucharist; but, he borrows as only genius borrows, fusing and refashioning "wine and bread" in the carnal glow of an imagination tempered by the heartbreaking devastation of inescapable isolation.

You met him at some temple, where
they take your clothes at the door
He was just a numberless man in a chair
who'd just come back from the war
And you wrap up his tired face in your hair
and he hands you the apple core
Then he touches your lips now so suddenly bare
of all the kisses we put on some time before

And he gave you a German Shepherd to walk
with a collar of leather and nails
and he never once made you explain or talk
about all of the little details
such as who had a word and who had a rock
and who had you through the mails
Now your love is a secret all over the block
and it never stops not even when your master fails

And he took you up in his aeroplane
which he flew without any hands
and you cruised above the ribbons of rain
that drove the crowd from the stands
Then he killed the lights in a lonely Lane
and an ape with angel glands
erased the final wisps of pain
with the music of rubber bands

And now I hear your master sing
you kneel for him to come
His body is a golden string
that your body is hanging from
His body is a golden string
my body has grown numb
Oh now you hear your master sing
your shirt is all undone

And will you kneel beside this bed
that we polished so long ago
before your master chose instead
to make my bed of snow
Your eyes are wild and your knuckles are red
and you're speaking far too low
No I can't make out what your master said
before he made you go

Then I think you're playing far too rough
for a lady who's been to the moon
I've lain by this window long enough
to get used to an empty room
And your love is some dust in an old man's cough
who is tapping his foot to a tune
and your thighs are a ruin, you want too much
let's say you came back some time too soon

I loved your master perfectly
I taught him all that he knew
He was starving in some deep mystery
like a man who is sure what is true
And I sent you to him with my guarantee
I could teach him something new
and I taught him how you would long for me
no matter what he said no matter what you'd do

I believe that you heard your master sing
while I was sick in bed
I'm sure that he told you everything
I must keep locked away in my head
Your master took you travelling
well at least that's what you said
And now do you come back to bring
your prisoner wine and bread

Forced by circumstance to abandon his own true calling, the Prisoner shuns Her perfectly. Traditionally, the troubadour, at career's close, is said to renounce love and recant love poetry before taking up residence in a monastery. Retroactive food for thought, courtesy of your humble scribe who feels in some way duty-bound to quote the following lines LC puts in the mouth of one of the angels in his seminal musical Night Magic:

. . . But now I make my confession
Before all the mirrors of history
This power was given to me
It must have been given to me
For something more
Than a star on the door
And a foot in this shabby profession . . .