The Lonely Dancer

THE LONELY DANCER

I had no heart to join the dance,

I danced it all so long agö

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.