Untitled - UBC Library - University of British Columbia

iiT
—,-----—-------..
•j’i R-JViL I ..L
I
TWO EPITAPHS
I want no blame or sympathy
Or honest tears or maudlin prayers.
Withdraw and stare not, passerby:
Let me conduct my own affairs.
I will not have my name emblazoned here
For fools to stare at, or foes left behind me
To mock. Why should I advertise my tomb?
God and my friends and the worms know where to find me.
I4I
—D. H.B.
CAPRICE VIENNOIS
‘][‘HE stage is draped with velvet, dark as sleep,
JL And silence soft as velvet hangs like mist,
When suddenly from far deep backgrounds creep
Slim figures, coming as to keep strange tryst
With fairies, on some far, elf-haunted strand;
A throng of colors—silver and gold-red—
It flows apart. The leader of each band
Comes forward.
First, bending stately head,
A golden girl in robes of gypsy shades,
Her wide skirts sweeping round her, pirouettes,
Bends low, her colors billowing, and glissades.
Then comes a girl, her dress like some Pierrette’s,
Of silver, with a silver wig and shoes,
Who laughs, and, standing poised, waves twinkling hands;
To look at her, all silver, is to muse
On bubbles, rainbows, sunlight on strange sands,
Sea-gulls. . . Then she steps back and smiles,
And with her company fades all away,
And back again, with magic swiftness, files
The golden group, bright as the dawning day.
Now comes a dance of Spanish grace and pride,
A minuet of sweeping golden-reds;
The dancers stately turn and bow and glide,
And bend dark, graceful, gypsy-kerchiefed heads.
The band first forms a sparkling double line,
And two by two the dancers pace it down,
Wreathing it goldly like some magic vine,
And at the end, a bow with billowing gown.
They weave it like a living golden rope,
And twist and inter-twist it, turn, and sweep,
Bend low once more, and let its shining scope
Stretch wider as they separate, yet keep
f[ 194]!