On with the Dance -
(VIENNA, JUNE 1934.)
UNDER the lamp-strung chestnut trees, the sweet budding limes, Among the yelling switchbacks and the Kinos, The cool, crowded beergardens, where music pours, Stifled news and rumours, like shadows, flitter.
"Last night the Reds in our district • . . "
"Did you hear the bombs explode by the gasworks ? . . . "They say the Browns have all escaped . . . "
Three sailors, arm in arm, lurch down the alley,
Their words fall darkly among the jokes of love,— " Both railway lines were blown to pieces,
Yet the trains were Warned . . . " And here, pack-
saddled, A party of trippers returning from the river Mix with their friends beside the shooting booths,— " He told me "—the shadows fly—" Only last week
One struck the other at a Cabinet meeting . . . "
"Were those our own troops in the lorries, or . . . "
"I've certain news they've settled that swine's hash, They found him, stabbed, in the woods."— A group of boys by a restaurant trellis Mutter together between cigarettes.
And from the papers sold before the tram And over the radio frcim hour to hour, Monotonous, important, insincere, The yokes of the rulers "come :— " All's well, all's orderly, on with the dance ! "-
Like nervous clowns with paint-fixed grin
Gabbling their patter froth a ricktty stage.
JOHN Imams. slx.-
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