A Gypsy Tease

Down in the lower farmer’s field

Was an old style gypsy camp,

The wagons drawn in a circle,

Each one lit with a paraffin lamp,

And there in the centre of them all

A bonfire burned all night,

The flames would leap and the shadows creep

In a sort of mystic flight.

I’d watch from a grove of elder trees

As the gypsies sang and danced,

The girls would swirl their skirts to tease

As they whirled around and pranced,

Their arms were covered with bangles and

Their fingers, bright with rings,

Would flash at night in the firelight

As the shadows gave them wings.

Most of the girls were young, but there

Was a single one, my age,

Who danced with grace in an open space

She was on a separate page,

Her hair was black as a raven, and

Her lips the colour of blood,

My heart was stilled, it was almost chilled

By the view, from where I stood.

Her eyes were dark, they were almost black

Her hue the colour of sand,

I thought that it might be natural

Or perhaps her skin was tanned,

But as if she read my thoughts one day

She had twirled her dress up high,

And that same bright golden colour rose,

Ran up each fabulous thigh.

Then I saw her at the village fair

In the Fortune Teller’s booth,

I paid my money to go in there

And I found her name was Ruth,

She gazed deep into her crystal ball

And I saw her start to flush,

I said, ‘and what can you see in there,’

When the flush became a blush.

‘I’ve never seen such a thing before,’

She said, her eyes cast low,

‘I cannot tell you your fortune now,

So sir, you will have to go.’

She rose and pushed me out of the tent

But I gazed into her eyes,

And saw the future of my intent

In her look of blank surprise.

I went again and she read the cards

Wouldn’t touch the crystal ball,

She said, ‘there’s something very strange

In the way the cards will fall.’

I blurted out that I loved her hair

That I’d watched her from afar,

She smiled and said, I would turn her head,

‘I had wondered who you are.’

Then we stood together in that booth

And I stole a single kiss,

She fell into my arms, and cried,

‘I could not imagine this.

But the crystal ball, it never lies

And the cards have joined us too,'

She gave me one of her gypsy sighs,

Said, ‘What are we going to do?’

David Lewis Paget