dance

(After Lorca)

Now in Vienna there are ten pretty women.
There's a shoulder where death comes to cry.
There's a lobby with nine hundred windows.
There's a tree where the doves go to die.
There's a piece that was torn from the morning,
and it hangs in the Gallery of Frost—
Ay, ay ay ay
Take this waltz, take this waltz,
take this waltz with the clamp on its jaws.

I want you, I want you, I want you
on a chair with a dead magazine.
In the cave at the tip of the lily,

Prelude

Blue storm-clouds in hot heavens of mid-July
Hung heavy, brooding over land and sea:
Our hearts, a-tremble, throbbed in harmony
With the wild, restless tone of air and sky.
Shall we not call im Prospero who held
In his enchanted hands the fateful key
Of that tempestuous hour's mystery,
And with controlling wand our spirits spelled,
With him to wander by a sun-bright shore,
To hear fine, fairy voices, and to fly
With disembodied Ariel once more

Up in th' mountain
I was a-sitting,
With the bird there
As my guest,
Blithely singing,
Blithely springing,
And building
His nest.

In the garden
I was a-standing,
And the bee there
Saw as well,
Buzzing, humming,
Going, coming,
And building
His cell.

O'er the meadow
I was a-going,
And there saw the
Butterflies,
Sipping, dancing,
Flying, glancing,
And charming
The eyes.

And then came my
Dear Hansel,
And I show'd them

1 Spring, the sweet spring, is the year's pleasant king,
2 Then blooms each thing, then maids dance in a ring,
3 Cold doth not sting, the pretty birds do sing:
4 Cuckoo, jug-jug, pu-we, to-witta-woo!

5 The palm and may make country houses gay,
6 Lambs frisk and play, the shepherds pipe all day,
7 And we hear aye birds tune this merry lay:
8 Cuckoo, jug-jug, pu-we, to-witta-woo!

9 The fields breathe sweet, the daisies kiss our feet,

See what delights in sylvan scenes appear!
Descending Gods have found Elysium here.
In woods bright Venus with Adonis stray'd,
And chaste Diana haunts the forest shade.
Come lovely nymph, and bless the silent hours,
When swains from shearing seek their nightly bow'rs;
When weary reapers quit the sultry field,
And crown'd with corn, their thanks to Ceres yield.
This harmless grove no lurking viper hides,
But in my breast the serpent Love abides.
Here bees from blossoms sip the rosy dew,

I wonder if successful men
Are always happy?
And do they sing with gusto when
Springtime is sappy?
Although I am of snow-white hair
And nighly mortal,
Each time I sniff the April air
I chortle.

I wonder if a millionaire
Jigs with enjoyment,
Having such heaps of time to spare
For daft employment.
For as I dance the Highland Fling
My glee is muckle,
And doping out new songs to sing
I chuckle.

My precious grand-child, aged two,
Is eager to unlace one shoe,
And then the other;
Her cotton socks she'll deftly doff
Despite the mild reproaches of
Her mother.

Around the house she loves to fare,
And with her rosy tootsies bare,
Pit-pat the floor;
And though remonstrances we make
She presently decides to take
Off something more.

Her pinafore she next unties,
And then before we realise,
Her dress drops down;

I.--The Hindu Ascetic.


Here as I sit by the Jumna bank,
Watching the flow of the sacred stream,
Pass me the legions, rank on rank,
And the cannon roar, and the bayonets gleam.

Is it a god or a king that comes?
Both are evil, and both are strong;
With women and worshipping, dancing and drums,
Carry your gods and your kings along.

Fanciful shapes of a plastic earth,
These are the visions that weary the eye;
These I may 'scape by a luckier birth,
Musing, and fasting, and hoping to die.

The same stream of life that runs through my veins night and day
runs through the world and dances in rhythmic measures.

It is the same life that shoots in joy through the dust of the earth
in numberless blades of grass
and breaks into tumultuous waves of leaves and flowers.

It is the same life that is rocked in the ocean-cradle of birth
and of death, in ebb and in flow.

I feel my limbs are made glorious by the touch of this world of life.

"And if he's gone away," said she,
"Good riddance, if you're asking me.
I'm not a one to lie awake
And weep for anybody's sake.
There's better lads than him about!
I'll wear my buckled slippers out
A-dancing till the break of day.
I'm better off with him away!
And if he never come," said she,
"Now what on earth is that to me?
I wouldn't have him back!"
I hope
Her mother washed her mouth with soap.