Poetry
The Dancer
WHEN this body, that I have schooled to interpret
Each sound in motion effortless and sure, That rises to a pinnacle of silence, Seeming to pause an instant there, secure, Shall, at the last, fall from a wide-flung gesture Into the cold rigidity of death, And lie so heavily, that once was lighter Than thistledown that veers to every breath, Lay me not then in the dark earth unfriendly, Where never leaf shall sway nor flower nod, And I shall slowly sink into corruption Under the grass my dancing feet have trod.
Take me, before my limbs are set in rigor,
To a tall funeral pyre on some dark night, Where fire eats quickly through the crackling wood As if my speed had set the stage alight, And flames leap up like draperies that catch
Their changing colours from the spotlight's glare—
But never dance was swift as this that makes me One with the smoke that fades upon the air, A handful of ashes curtseying in the wind, On tiptoe in some strange fantastic measure ; For so in death I dance to please myself That gave my life to dance for others' pleasure.
PHYLLIS HARTNOLL.
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