December 1953 School Magazine

December, 1953

Brisbane Girls' Grammar School Magazine

December, 1953

Brisbane Girls:' Grammar School Magazine

TO VASLAV NIJINSKY You are that legendery figure, never seen, but always glimpsed beyond the dim dream's transparent backcloth ; or in green,

dark groves, the wings of time's topless auditorium, there where at evening the mis,ted lake is laid away like a remembered silence in the ' angry day, you wander, a young and lonely prince, far from the huntsman in the magic wood, and drawn by sinister enchantments, visions of a swan that glides and calls across the haunted glade. You are the rose breathing its own and universal essence, the shadow leaping from the body it has understood into music's air, the pure design of deliverance and pattern of the mind's bare, o1·dered solitude. You are both fool and harlequin, the gay and melancholy dancer at funerals of innocence and love 's· wise folly. You are the loveless, lost, the lonely and the dumb, the vanquished who alone 1· ehears e what triumph means, the spectre whose reality we seek; the faun for whom no curtain falls upon the mystery that he }las always known. -ALEXA TABKE, IV.D. LANCELOT TO-DAY Hearing a knock without, Sir Lancelot rose, And at the radiator warmed his toes.

The frenzied knock con tinned, Lancelot armed With vases two, and downstairs went, alarmed. The window opened he one timid inch, Afraid that mob outside himself might lynch; The door-bolts he secured with trembling fist, Thinking the mob, pm·haps, was Communist; And he knew well the rose-cravatted tribe Had ways of torture no tongue could describe. But, gazing from the casement crack, he saw Not a r ebellion's minions', but the Law; Instead of pennants of the crimson crew, He there perceived constabulary blue. Constabulary officer defied By barking clog at trousers dignified! Brave Lancelot rushes through the flailing paws, Beseeching says, "Live, puppy, and let live." Then taking in the breathless man of law, He soothed the anger roused by recent war, And gravely tended all his victim's wants, Especially the patches for his pants. Then outraged snorts became polite salutes, And pale composure purple rage refutes. The officer, with smiles no longer forced, Of papers, beer, domestic pets, disc.oursed; ' 'And by the way,' ' while sipping Lancelot 's grog, ' ' Have you a licence for that cursed dog~'' Ou.t came the book; our hero might perceive His doughty deed had earned him no reprieve_ Past spurning heels, intimidating jaws, And taking up the chain retributive,

-JUDITH C. GREEN, VI.

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