Crazy Jane Grown Old Looks at the Dancers
Crazy Jane Grown Old Looks at the Dancers - meaning Summary
Love as Violent Bite
An older Crazy Jane watches a younger couple dance and remembers a violent, ambiguous episode in which a lover winds the woman’s hair and she draws a knife. The speaker cannot intervene, and the poem repeats the refrain comparing love to a "lion's tooth," suggesting a brutal, unavoidable force that wounds as well as grips. The final lines mix memory, resignation, and physical longing for past vigor.
Read Complete AnalysesI found that ivory image there Dancing with her chosen youth, But when he wound her coal-black hair As though to strangle her, no scream Or bodily movement did I dare, Eyes under eyelids did so gleam; Love is like the lion's tooth. When She, and though some said she played I said that she had danced heart's truth, Drew a knife to strike him dead, I could but leave him to his fate; For no matter what is said They had all that had their hate; Love is like the lion's tooth. Did he die or did she die? Seemed to die or died they both? God be with the times when I Cared not a thraneen for what chanced So that I had the limbs to try Such a dance as there was danced - Love is like the lion's tooth.
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