Look! Even now her body speaks that ancient dialect of motion
she learned in her long ago, when her flesh was pliant, when
she could depend on her muscles, easily cultivating grace and flow.
She no longer dances publicly. She instructs and directs the company's
young dancers. She shares with them those physical arts of eloquence,
of gestural poignancy, the arts she's devoted her long career to perfecting.
You may have noticed how many dancers use this bar. She's here when
old friends are passing through. She sips demurely at her spritzer,
she wears her hair pulled back severely, an ascetic in the service of dance.
Her body disciplined
Hwat!
Hear, O herald, honest England's muse,
my tale of fear and fight; of flight and force,
a blood-bathed battle Britain mustn't lose,
King Godwinson's stand 'gainst the mighty Norse.
So, kin of dooméd kings, hark kindly to the tale.
For none, not Norse nor Brit did long outlast,
the crimson carnage and the fletcher's hail,
once Wotan's warlike, ashen spear was cast.
Terrible triumph from terrible wrath
gave carrion ravens a rare, rank feast.
So vanquishing the Northmen from the North,
he then would face the Northmen of the East.
But onwards, to calamity, we haste