Myrna's Dance

                      Myrna’s Dance      [Adapted from Neknus, Canto XXX]        They drink to pained excess who know Not when their bellies will be filled again With anything more tasteful than poor scraps Stolen, or begged, from wealthy merchants who Fill the markets daily with their goods.      They drink until the wine and […]

 

                    Myrna’s Dance

     [Adapted from Neknus, Canto XXX]

 

     They drink to pained excess who know

Not when their bellies will be filled again

With anything more tasteful than poor scraps

Stolen, or begged, from wealthy merchants who

Fill the markets daily with their goods.

     They drink until the wine and they are drunk

And their induced elation sours

       In the chilly early hours

Of another bleak and workless dawn.

 

          Drunken Manus in his hovel,

Holding rout with prostitutes and fellow reprobates,

                  Roughly tells

His cousin Myrna to perform a dance

          To please the liquid gathering.

          She, poor orphan, needing shelter,

Does not dare refuse his rude command

As Manus takes a harp and plucks its plangent strings

          Whilst Tanus, his blind brother,

               Beats a battered drum.

 

     To their crude music Myrna dances –

Lit by the flames from an open fire –

                 Slowly to start with,

Until the players’ fuddled minds can guide

Their wayward hands to find a rhythmic spell

In which the music louder, faster flows.

 

                 Then Myrna sways;

                  She stamps and spins,

       She leaps and swirls; she claps

                 And ever faster moves.

Pacing, prancing, skipping, cavorting

Forwards, backwards, roundabout she goes

– Her ragged garments fluttering like wings –

As steps and gestures intricately link

With the madly evocative musical beat.

 

       Now is Myrna stirred to ecstasy;

Fierce flash her eyes, wild streams her hair,

Swiftly fly her arms in lithe fluidity.

       Beauty and gracefulness,

                  Passion and power

Pour from her dancing to captivate the crowd;

 

Until the music loses its consistency

       And she stops – exhausted

       By the effort she has made –

As hardened topers turn their minds and mouths

Back to the flagons they had meanwhile put aside.

Author: J. A. Bosworth

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