LordPeter List Literary Contest

Spinning and waltzing in a widening arc
The dancer cannot hear his partner;
Vain gaiety and all artifice;
Imitation is loosed upon the world,
The petunia-hued gown is bustled and
Everywhere is the ceremony of the past.
The young know all this is false, while the old
Are full of passionate remembrance.

Surely some regression is at hand;
Surely a return to womanliness is at hand.
A return to womanliness! Hardly thought,
A vast image out of ages past
Troubles the sight; in a milliner's shop,
A shape with female body and empty head
Moves her slow thighs and all around her
Flit shadows of earnest young men.
Reality intrudes once more; but now we know
This ancient game of ever-changing masks
Was brought to new life by a Great War.
And what new games will the young deign to play,
Slouching towards the future, knowing all the rules?

-- Miss de Vine

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