Gypsy Twist Poem by David Lewis Paget

The gypsy walked at the shingle,
Her dress flared out in the breeze,
Her hair tied back with a coloured scarf
As she wandered at her ease,
She fed the gulls at the water's edge
And she gazed back, moodily,
Where the Master of Harrington Hall was stood
As he watched her, through the trees.

While back at the house there, on the hill,
His wife sat in despair,
She'd worn her prettiest dress for him,
She'd combed her auburn hair,
She'd flushed her cheeks with a touch of rouge,
Her lips were gypsy red,
But she hadn't attracted a single glance
From his lordship's noble head.

He'd taken her as a child, and taught her
How to walk with grace,
He'd sent her off to a finishing school
To learn her lady's place,
She'd learnt to stifle emotion when
It rose in her frightened eyes,
And sat with her needlework and thread,
A work that she despised!

Then once she was taught, and tamed enough,
He showed her to his kin,
They nodded with faint approval at
The match that he'd made for him,
They dressed her up in a wedding gown
And mocked, behind her back,
This would-be lady from finishing school,
So open to attack!

They'd beaten her conversation out,
They'd left her feeling small,
He'd tried to speak to her once or twice,
But she couldn't reply at all.
She knew but little or nothing of
The world, or its great affairs,
So sat at the window sewing,
Watched him stray in the woods out there.

The gypsies came in the autumn,
Made their camp at the edge of the wood,
The Lord of Harrington Hall had said:
'Some colour will do us good!
He wandered out to inspect the camp,
Its caravans, horses and thieves,
But the sight that caught at his jaundiced eye
Was the gypsy, Genevieve!

She'd danced in a leafy clearing to
The sound of an ancient lute,
Her smile so bright, her teeth so white
And a necklace made of fruit,
She seemed at one with the humid earth
With a perfume made from musk,
She danced like sin, and she drew him in
As the day drew down to dusk.

Simone sat long at the window with
Her needlework denied,
While down at the long breakwater
Sat her husband, watching the tide!
She saw as the colony of terns
Wheeled screaming into the air,
And Genevieve knotted a love-knot
Into her wild, beribboned hair.

The gypsies left as the winter snow
Turned white the pebbled shore,
But long after dusk, the lord returned
Came in at the servants' door,
Behind him the gypsy, Genevieve,
Had sat by the kitchen fire,
As he told Simone that he'd brought her home,
And this was his one desire!

'She needs to be educated, needs
A mentor, full of grace,
Get rid of the rough and ready parts
Of her rough and ready race!
I've taken it on myself to form her,
Teach her to sip her wine,
She'll have the advantage you have had,
You'll see - it'll work out fine! '

She went away to the finishing school
And Simone sighed with relief,
She tried so hard with her wayward lord
That she felt a new belief,
But she lost a child in the early spring
And it turned his lordship's head,
She knew that she'd lost her only chance,
Her marriage, as good as dead!

A year went by, as a year it will
In the flash of an eye, and gone,
And Genevieve had returned one day
In a carriage, a bonnet on!
She looked demure as she curtsied low
To the lord, who smiled her way,
But she'd lost her pout, and her fire was out,
And she seemed no longer gay.

Now Genevieve takes her needlework
And she sits by the windowsill,
But she never utters a word to him
The Master of Harrington Hall.
He watches Simone as she trips the beach,
And her dress flares out in the breeze,
As she dances, wild as a gypsy girl,
To a lute that sounds through the trees.

18 September 2009