The Lonely Dancer

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 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.