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Classic and Contemporary Poetry


BUCOLIC COMEDY: PAVANE by EDITH SITWELL

Poet Analysis

First Line: ANNUNCIATA STANDS
Last Line: REACHED THE BEGGAR'S DAUGHTER.
Subject(s): BEGGING & BEGGARS; DANCING & DANCERS;

Annunciata stands
On the flat lands
Under the pear-tree
(Jangling sweetly). See,
The cure-black leaves
Are cawing like a rook . . .
Annunciata grieves,
"No young man will look
At me with my harsh jangling hair
Pink as the one pear
(A flapping crude fish tinsel-pink
Flapping across the consciousness
Like laughter) and my tattered dress."
Then from the brink
Of the deep well,
Sounding like a bell,
From the castles under water
The old men seek the beggar's daughter . . .
Some were wrinkled grey
From suicide grown gay
And smiling, some were seen
With ivy limbs green
And gnarled with the water . . .
"Dance a pavane, beggar's daughter" . . .
They wooed her with book
And the water's tuneless bell
Wooed her as well --
A water-hidden sound achieves;
And cawing like a rook
Were the cure-black leaves . . .
One feather-breast of dew was grey
Upon round leaves -- they fled away.
Only a moaning sound
From the castles that lie drowned
Beneath the fruit-boughs of the water
Reached the beggar's daughter.



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