The Seventh Hungarian Dance Of Brahms

Underneath the curtains edged with moth-gnawn gold

Stood a splintry staging dark with unscrubbed mould.

The footlights lit not, the piano had a cold,

The seven rows of stalls were empty.

Then upon the music came the footfall light,

You had brought the sunshine to the death-vault’s blight,

Brought the spring and sunshine and the year’s delight

And all the birds of April singing.

John Masefield