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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 or 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,
When 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. 
 
 
 
Richard Le Gallienne
 
 
Dance Poetry
A comprehensive anthology
Edited by Alkis Raftis
Copyright 2012

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