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Music in a Snowy Street

 

 

THE weather is sharp,
But the girls are unmoved:
One wakes from a harp,
The next from a viol,
A strain that I loved
When life was no trial.
 
The tripletime beat
Bounds forth on the snow,
But the spry springing feet
Of a century ago,
And the arms that enlaced
As the couples embraced,
Are silent old bones
Under graying gravestones.
 
The snow-feathers sail
Across the harp-strings,
Whose throbbing threads wail
Like love-satiate things.
Each lyre’s grimy mien,
With its rout-raising tune,
Against the new white
Of the flake-laden noon,
Is incongruous to sight,
Hinting years they have seen
Of revel at night
Ere these damsels became
Possessed of their frame.
 
O bygone whilrs, heys,
Crotchets, quavers, the same
That were danced in the days
Of grim Bonaparte’s fame,
Or even by the toes
Of the fair Antoinette, -
Yea, old notes like those
Here are living on yet ! -
But of their fame and fashion
How little these know
Who strum without passion
For pence, in the snow !
 
 
 
 

Thomas Hardy

 
 
Dance Poetry
A comprehensive anthology
Edited by Alkis Raftis
Copyright 2012

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