The Lonely Dancer and Other Poems

Excerpt

THE LONELY DANCER

I had no heart to join the dance,
  I danced it all so long ago—
Ah! light-winged music out of France,
  Let other feet glide to and fro,
Weaving new patterns of romance
  For bosoms of new-fallen snow.

But leave me thus where I may hear
  The leafy rustle of the waltz,
The shell-like murmur in my ear,
  The silken whisper fairy-false
Of unseen rainbows circling near,
  And the glad shuddering of the walls.

Another dance the dancers spin,
  A shadow-dance of mystic pain,
And other partners enter in
  And dance within my lonely brain—
The swaying woodland shod in green,
  The ghostly dancers of the rain;

The lonely dancers of the sea,
  Foam-footed on the sandy bar,
The wizard dance of wind and tree,
  The eddying dance of stream and star;
Yea, all these dancers tread for me
  A measure mournful and bizarre:

An echo-dance where ear is eye,
  And sound evokes the shapes of things,
Where out of silence and a sigh
  The sad world like a picture springs,
As, when some secret bird sweeps by,
  We see it in the sound of wings.

Those human feet upon the floor,
  That eager pulse of rhythmic breath,—
How sadly to an unknown shore
  Each silver footfall hurryeth;
A dance of autumn leaves, no more,
  On the fantastic wind of death.

Fire clasped to elemental fire,
  'Tis thus the solar atom whirls;
The butterfly in aery gyre,
  On autumn mornings, swarms and swirls,
In dance of delicate desire,
  No other than these boys and girls.

The same strange music everywhere,
  The woven paces just the same,
Dancing from out the viewless air
  Into the void from whence they came;
Ah! but they make a gallant flare
  Against the dark, each little flame!

And what if all the meaning lies
  Just in the music, not in those
Who dance thus with transfigured eyes,
  Holding in vain each other close;
Only the music never dies,
  The dance goes on,—the dancer goes.

A woman dancing, or a world
  Poised on one crystal foot afar,
In shining gulfs of silence whirled,
  Like notes of the strange music are;
Small shape against another curled,
  Or dancing dust that makes a star.

To him who plays the violin
  All one it is who joins the reel,
Drops from the dance, or enters in;
  So that the never-ending wheel
Cease not its mystic course to spin,
  For weal or woe, for woe or weal.

I

FLOS AEVORUM

You must mean more than just this hour,
  You perfect thing so subtly fair,
Simple and complex as a flower,
  Wrought with such planetary care;
How patient the eternal power
  That wove the marvel of your hair.

How long the sunlight and the sea
  Wove and re-wove this rippling gold
To rhythms of eternity;
  And many a flashing thing grew old,
Waiting this miracle to be;
  And painted marvels manifold,

Still with his work unsatisfied,
  Eager each new effect to try,
The solemn artist cast aside,
  Rainbow and shell and butterfly,
As some stern blacksmith scatters wide
  The sparks that from his anvil fly.

How many shells, whorl within whorl,
  Litter the marges of the sphere
With wrack of unregarded pearl,
  To shape that little thing your ear:
Creation, just to make one girl,
  Hath travailed with exceeding fear....