Dancing Dust
	Poems by Mollie Caird (1922-2000)
	Malory
Home Alphabetic index of poems Thematic index of poems Biography Gallery Contact and links	Prisons are rat-infested, and the slime Crawls on the flagged floor, eating with slow rust The chains which are the memory of lust And galling reminiscences of crime. But there are window-bars, and came a time When his numb fingers wrote because they must Of a sword and a rose he saw in the sunny dust, And a fair queeen on a palfrey white as rime. She was a lady, more than a white ghost, Bright eyes she had, bright hair and living breath, Gold crowned under a green canopy; And she it was whom Lancelot loved most, Singing of beauty long since damned to death, And grief condemned to immortality. Dated 31 January 1944