The Night Dance

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1. Bad for ears the song wasn’t up to the task Of getting through the double-glazing Into the ears pressed on the outside pane The rest of their bodies had faded away but The ears were straining still towards the music In order to know the good times being had in the room Night fell the cold grew and […]...
2. Music When music sounds, gone is the earth I know, And all her lovely things even lovelier grow; Her flowers in vision flame, her forest trees Lift burdened branches, stilled with ecstasies. When music sounds, out of the water rise Naiads whose beauty dims my waking eyes, Rapt in strange dreams burns each enchanted face, With […]...
3. The Dance See how, like lightest waves at play, the airy dancers fleet; And scarcely feels the floor the wings of those harmonious feet. Ob, are they flying shadows from their native forms set free? Or phantoms in the fairy ring that summer moonbeams see? As, by the gentle zephyr blown, some light mist flees in air, […]...
4. Garden and cradle When our babe he goeth walking in his garden, Around his tinkling feet the sunbeams play; The posies they are good to him, And bow them as they should to him, As fareth he upon his kingly way; And birdlings of the wood to him Make music, gentle music, all the day, When our babe […]...
5. My Last Dance The shell of objects inwardly consumed Will stand, till some convulsive wind awakes; Such sense hath Fire to waste the heart of things, Nature, such love to hold the form she makes. Thus, wasted joys will show their early bloom, Yet crumble at the breath of a caress; The golden fruitage hides the scathèd bough, […]...
6. Night and Day When the golden day is done, Through the closing portal, Child and garden, Flower and sun, Vanish all things mortal. As the blinding shadows fall As the rays diminish, Under evening’s cloak they all Roll away and vanish. Garden darkened, daisy shut, Child in bed, they slumber Glow-worm in the hallway rut, Mice among the […]...
7. Restless Night As bamboo chill drifts into the bedroom, Moonlight fills every corner of our Garden. Heavy dew beads and trickles. Stars suddenly there, sparse, next aren’t. Fireflies in dark flight flash. Waking Waterbirds begin calling, one to another. All things caught between shield and sword, All grief empty, the clear night passes....
8. At the Mid Hour of Night At the mid hour of night, when stars are weeping, I fly To the lone vale we loved, when life shone warm in thine eye; And I think oft, if spirits can steal from the regions of air, To revisit past scenes of delight, thou wilt come to me there, And tell me our love […]...
9. New Year's Chimes What is the song the stars sing? (And a million songs are as song of one) This is the song the stars sing: (Sweeter song’s none) One to set, and many to sing, (And a million songs are as song of one) One to stand, and many to cling, The many things, and the one […]...
10. Night-Scented Stock White, white in the milky night The moon danced over a tree. “Wouldn’t it be lovely to swim in the lake!” Someone whispered to me. “Oh, do-do-do!” cooed someone else, And clasped her hands to her chin. “I should so love to see the white bodies All the white bodies jump in!” The big dark […]...
11. My Song This song of mine will wind its music around you, my child, like The fond arms of love. This song of mine will touch your forehead like a kiss of Blessing. When you are alone it will sit by your side and whisper in Your ear, when you are in the crowd it will fence […]...
12. The Night – Wind In summer’s mellow midnight, A cloudless moon shone through Our open parlour window, And rose-trees wet with dew. I sat in silent musing; The soft wind waved my hair; It told me heaven was glorious, And sleeping earth was fair. I needed not its breathing To bring such thoughts to me; But still it whispered […]...
13. The Master of the Dance A chant to which it is intended a group of children shall dance and improvise pantomime led by their dancing-teacher. I A master deep-eyed Ere his manhood was ripe, He sang like a thrush, He could play any pipe. So dull in the school That he scarcely could spell, He read but a bit, And […]...
14. Where Does the Dance Begin, Where Does It End? Don’t call this world adorable, or useful, that’s not it. It’s frisky, and a theater for more than fair winds. The eyelash of lightning is neither good nor evil. The struck tree burns like a pillar of gold. But the blue rain sinks, straight to the white Feet of the trees Whose mouths open. Doesn’t […]...
15. My Garden The world is sadly sick, they say, And plagued by woe and pain. But look! How looms my garden gay, With blooms in golden reign! With lyric music in the air, Of joy fulfilled in song, I can’t believe that anywhere Is hate and harm and wrong. A paradise my garden is, And there my […]...
16. Night Piece Climb, claim your shelf-room, far Packed from inquisitive moon And cold contagious stars. Lean out, but look no longer, No further, than to stir Night with extended finger. Now fill the box with light, Flood full the shining block, Masonry against night. Let window, curtain, blind Soft-sieve and sift and shred The impertinence of sound. […]...
17. Dance Figure For the Marriage in Cana of Galilee Dark-eyed, O woman of my dreams, Ivory sandalled, There is none like thee among the dancers, None with swift feet. I have not found thee in the tents, In the broken darkness. I have not found thee at the well-head Among the women with pitchers. Thine arms are […]...
18. Snowy Night Last night, an owl In the blue dark Tossed An indeterminate number Of carefully shaped sounds into The world, in which, A quarter of a mile away, I happened To be standing. I couldn’t tell Which one it was – The barred or the great-horned Ship of the air – It was that distant. But, […]...
19. Night (This night, agitated by the growing storm) This night, agitated by the growing storm, How it has suddenly expanded its dimensions, That ordinarily would have gone unnoticed, Like a cloth folded, and hidden in the folds of time. Where the stars give resistance it does not stop there, Neither does it begin within the forest’s depths, Nor show upon the surface of […]...
20. Mondnacht (Night Of The Moon) Es war, als hätt’ der Himmel Die Erde still geküsst Dass sie im Blütenschimmer Von ihm nun träumen müsst Die Luft ging durch die Felder Die Ähren wogten sacht Es rauschten leis die Wälder So sternklar war die Nacht Und meine Seele spannte Weit ihre Flügel aus Flog durch die stillen Lande Als flöge sie […]...
21. Sonnet 17 – My poet, thou canst touch on all the notes My poet, thou canst touch on all the notes God set between his After and Before, And strike up and strike off the general roar Of the rushing worlds a melody that floats In a serene air purely. Antidotes Of medicated music, answering for Mankind’s forlornest uses, thou canst pour From thence into their ears. […]...
22. Voices Of the Night PRELUDE. Pleasant it was, when woods were green, And winds were soft and low, To lie amid some sylvan scene, Where, the long drooping boughs between Shadows dark and sunlight sheen Alternate come and go; Or where the denser grove receives No sunlight from above But the dark foliage interweaves In one unbroken roof of […]...
23. An Old Man's Winter Night All out of doors looked darkly in at him Through the thin frost, almost in separate stars, That gathers on the pane in empty rooms. What kept his eyes from giving back the gaze Was the lamp tilted near them in his hand. What kept him from remembering what it was That brought him to […]...
24. At Night The wind is singing through the trees to-night, A deep-voiced song of rushing cadences And crashing intervals. No summer breeze Is this, though hot July is at its height, Gone is her gentler music; with delight She listens to this booming like the seas, These elemental, loud necessities Which call to her to answer their […]...
25. The Starry Night That does not keep me from having a terrible need of shall I say the word religion. Then I go out at night to paint the stars. Vincent Van Gogh in a letter to his brother The town does not exist Except where one black-haired tree slips Up like a drowned woman into the hot […]...
26. Rapids at Night Here at the roots of the mountains, Between the sombre legions of cedars and tamaracks, The rapids charge the ravine: A little light, cast by foam under starlight, Wavers about the shimmering stems of the birches: Here rise up the clangorous sounds of battle, Immense and mournful. Far above curves the great dome of darkness […]...
27. Prairie Waters by Night CHATTER of birds two by two raises a night song joining a litany of running water-sheer waters showing the russet of old stones remembering many rains. And the long willows drowse on the shoulders of the running water, and sleep from much music; joined songs of day-end, feathery throats and stony waters, in a choir […]...
28. Pleasure XXIV Then a hermit, who visited the city once a year, came forth and said, “Speak to us of Pleasure.” And he answered, saying: Pleasure is a freedom song, But it is not freedom. It is the blossoming of your desires, But it is not their fruit. It is a depth calling unto a height, But […]...
29. Why Did I Dream Of You Last Night? Why did I dream of you last night? Now morning is pushing back hair with grey light Memories strike home, like slaps in the face; Raised on elbow, I stare at the pale fog beyond the window. So many things I had thought forgotten Return to my mind with stranger pain: – Like letters that […]...
30. THE DANCE OF DEATH CARRYING bouquet, and handkerchief, and gloves, Proud of her height as when she lived, she moves With all the careless and high-stepping grace, And the extravagant courtesan’s thin face. Was slimmer waist e’er in a ball-room wooed? Her floating robe, in royal amplitude, Falls in deep folds around a dry foot, shod With a bright […]...
31. The Last Chrysanthemum Why should this flower delay so long To show its tremulous plumes? Now is the time of plaintive robin-song, When flowers are in their tombs. Through the slow summer, when the sun Called to each frond and whorl That all he could for flowers was being done, Why did it not uncurl? It must have […]...
32. Week-Night Service The five old bells Are hurrying and eagerly calling, Imploring, protesting They know, but clamorously falling Into gabbling incoherence, never resting, Like spattering showers from a bursten sky-rocket dropping In splashes of sound, endlessly, never stopping. The silver moon That somebody has spun so high To settle the question, yes or no, has caught In […]...
33. In The Garden One moment alone in the garden, Under the August skies; The moon had gone but the stars shone on, – Shone like your beautiful eyes. Away from the glitter and gaslight, Alone in the garden there, While the mirth of the throng, in laugh and song, Floated out on the air. You looked down through […]...
34. THE MUSES' SON [Goethe quotes the beginning of this song in His Autobiography, as expressing the manner in which his poetical Effusions used to pour out from him.] THROUGH field and wood to stray, And pipe my tuneful lay, ‘Tis thus my days are pass’d; And all keep tune with me, And move in harmony, And so on, […]...
35. The Dance At The Phoenix To Jenny came a gentle youth From inland leazes lone; His love was fresh as apple-blooth By Parrett, Yeo, or Tone. And duly he entreated her To be his tender minister, And call him aye her own. Fair Jenny’s life had hardly been A life of modesty; At Casterbridge experience keen Of many loves had […]...
36. The Breath Of Night The moon rises. The red cubs rolling In the ferns by the rotten oak Stare over a marsh and a meadow To the farm’s white wisp of smoke. A spark burns, high in heaven. Deer thread the blossoming rows Of the old orchard, rabbits Hop by the well-curb. The cock crows From the tree by […]...
37. A November Night There! See the line of lights, A chain of stars down either side the street Why can’t you lift the chain and give it to me, A necklace for my throat? I’d twist it round And you could play with it. You smile at me As though I were a little dreamy child Behind whose […]...
38. An All-Night Sea Fight Ye sons of Mars, come list to me, And I will relate to ye A great and heroic naval fight, Which will fill your hearts with delight. The fight was between the French Frigate “Pique” and the British Frigate “Blanche,” But the British crew were bold and staunch; And the battle was fought in West […]...
39. Night-Music At one the wind rose, And with it the noise Of the black poplars. Long since had the living By a thin twine Been led into their dreams Where lanterns shine Under a still veil Of falling streams; Long since had the dead Become untroubled In the light soil. There were no mouths To drink […]...
40. The Night Journey Hands and lit faces eddy to a line; The dazed last minutes click; the clamour dies. Beyond the great-swung arc o’ the roof, divine, Night, smoky-scarv’d, with thousand coloured eyes Glares the imperious mystery of the way. Thirsty for dark, you feel the long-limbed train Throb, stretch, thrill motion, slide, pull out and sway, Strain […]...