Beneath her shade-ribbed switchback mane
The harpy, breasted like a train,
Was haggling with a farmer’s wife:
“Fresh harpy’s eggs, no trace of life.”
Miss Sitwell, cross and white as chalk,
Was indisposed for the small talk.
Since, peering through a shadowed door,
She saw Cassandra on the floor.
SMALL TALK
II
UPON the noon
Cassandra died,
Harpy soon
Screeched outside.
Gardener Jupp,
In his shed,
Counted wooden
Carrots red.
Black shades pass,
Dead-stiff there,
On green baize grass—
Drink his beer.
Bumpkin turnip,
Mask limp-locked,
White sun frights
The gardener shocked.
Harpy creaked
Her limbs again:
“I think, she squeaked,
It’s going to rain!”
DANSONS LA GIGUE
DANCE the jig, whirl
In the street, girl.
Rush up and down,
Houses, to town—
On the see-saw
Made out of raw
Hot yellow rays,
Crude edges of days.
Dance the jig, whirl—
Like your blond curl!
Oh! it is fine to-day,
On this Bank Holiday!
Sound of young feet
Comes down the street ...
Never again
Pleasure or pain....
Dance the jig, whirl
In the street, girl.
Do the dead ache
In summer, to slake
Their thirst of love?—Hush,—
No tears to gush,
My soul is of mud,
Cannot weep blood....
. . . .
Dance the jig, dance the jig,—
Dance the jig, girl.
MESSALINA AT MARGATE
THE tents are coloured like a child’s balloons;
They swell upon the air like August moons
Anchored by waters paler than a pearl;
The airs like rain-wet shrinking petals curl