POETRY.

TO THE RUSSIAN DANCERS.

MEMBERS of the Russian ballet, spring-heeled Jacks and spring-toed Jills,

As I ponder on your prowess, so provocative of thrills, Admiration mixed with anguish my dyspeptic bosom fills.

Nightly you have made us welcome to a wondrous colour feast Steeped in all the subtle magic of the immemorial East; Primitive you are, but never vulgar in the very least.

Every set and every section—priggish, human, dowdy, smart—

Has succumbed to the seduction of your many-sided art : You have danced your way completely into England's solid heart.

Hitherto the serious artist viewed the ballet with disdain As an operatic nuisance, neither relevant nor sane: But you never lend your talent to embellish the inane.

You have risen to your highest in the most exacting themes; You have lent a living lustre to the charm of Schumann's dreams;

Thanks to you the glow of Chopin's fancy all the brighter gleams.

All the stars, 0 Xarsavina, danced deliriously in space At your natal hour and twinkled greetings to the human race On the advent of a mortal gifted with such elfin grace.

Surely in your veins. Nijinsky, nothing but quicksilver flows, Indefatigable owner of the most fantastic toes—

How I love your flying exit in The Spectre of the Bose!

Yet, 0 Muscovite magicians, reapers of a rich renown, Agile sons of the opossum, daughters of the thistledown, There's a melancholy aspect to your conquest of the town.

You have heard your praises shouted till you cannot choose but blush; Saponaceous scribes have hailed you with sophisticated gush; And the great arch-lubricator has beslavered you with slush.

With a quite unerring instinct for the things that do not count, They have dwelt upon your jewels, on your salaries' amount, Soiling with their sordid fingers beauty's very midmost fount.

Minor bards (myself included) have bombarded you with rhymes ; Jokes about your names will figure in the London panto- mimes ; Bernard Shaw will analyse you in the columns of the Times.

Worst of all, 'tis lately rumoured that the mrenads of Mayfair Are determined to establish Mordkin as their master there, Hoping in a dozen lessons with Pavlova to compare.

Still, though sad infatuation you inspire in human geese, Level-headed normal persons—like the writer of this piece— May indulge in panegyric when your entertainments cease.

0. L. G.