Byron Is One of the Dancers

 

His poems – they were glad with jokes, trumpets,

   arguments and flying crockery

Rejoice

He shook hearts with his lust and nonsense, he was

   independent as the weather

Rejoice

Alive, alive, fully as alive as us, he used his life and let life

   use him

Rejoice

He loved freedom, he loved Greece, and yes of course, he

   died for the freedom of Greece

Rejoice

         

      And yes, this is a dance,

      and yes, beyond the glum farrago

      of TV cops after TV crooks

      in the blockheaded prison of TV –

      I hear the naked feet of Byron

      which skated once, powered by fascination

      over the cheerful skin of women’s legs,

      I hear those two bare feet –

      One delicate and one shaped horribly –

      slap and thud, slap, thud, slap, thud,

      across the cracked-up earth of Greece,

      and yes, I hear the music which drives those feet

      and feel the arm of Byron round my shoulder

      or maybe it is round my shoulder

      Oh I feel your arm around my shoulder

      and yes, I know the line of dancers

      across the cracked-up earth of Greece

      stretches from sea to sea

      as the shrivelled mountains erupt into music

      and Byron and all the million dancers

      yes brothers and sisters, lovers and lovers,

      some lucky in life and delicately-skinned,

      some shaped horribly by want or torture,

      dance out the dance which must be danced

      for the freedom of Greece

      for the freedom of Greece

Dance

        Rejoice

Dance

        Rejoice

 

Adrian Mitchell