Page:Lollingdon Downs and other poems, Masefield, 1917.djvu/58

52 XXIV

We danced away care till the fiddler's eyes blinked,

And at supper, at midnight, our wine-glasses chinked,

Then we danced till the roses that hung round the wall

Were broken red petals that did rise and did fall

To the ever-turning couples of the bright-eyed and gay,

Singing in the midnight to dance care away.

Then the dancing died out and the carriages came,

And the beauties took their cloaks and the men did the same,

And the wheels crunched the gravel and the lights were turned down,

And the tired beauties dozed through the cold drive to town.

Nan was the belle and she married her beau,

Who drank, and then beat her, and she died long ago,