To M. Michel Fokine

 

“There are three lovely things,” the old man said.

“Gallopping horses; and a ship at sea;

And men and women, dancing from delight.

Some say, a cornfield, or a moonlit night;

But, for myself, I stand beside the three,

As being beauty perfected with might.

No nobler wonders are or can be made.”

The painter of this book has known the first:

Gallopping horses fill his waking dreams;

His vision is the power of the horse,

The glory of its beauty and its force,

Whether it drag a share through earth that steams,

Or race with flying clods along a course,

Or tremble, watching for a fox’s burst.

Myself have seen the wonder of the ship

Stealing, with all sails set, out of the cloud;

Or bearing, under topsails dark with rain,

Up, to the Lizard Light, with foreign grain;

Or gallopping the sea with twanging shroud

And cataracting decks in shrill complain

And roaring whiteness streaming from her lip.

Now we together thank you for the third,

The dancers in delight, giving delight,

For who has served that beauty more than you?

Who, given greater grace a setting due?

Added a dearer lure to sound and sight?

Brought nearer man the rose that never grew

To woo the nightingale man never heard?

We are not dancers, and we know no more

Of Ballet and the Dance than watchers know

Of horses that at gallop scatter by

Tossing the cutted hoof-casts at the sky,

Ears pointed and eyes burning as they go;

Or of the ships that at an anchor lie,

Or pass into dim distance from the shore.

But, as those watchers may, we too, perceive

Something of this third beauty, and are glad

To thank some of its makers as we may.

Men may love Music though they cannot play.

Many are grateful for a pleasure had

From Beauty in some unfamiliar way,

May know no stars but love the starlit eve.

 

John Masefield