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We caught the
tread of dancing feet,
We loitered down the moonlit
street,
And stopped beneath the harlot's house.
Inside, above the din and fray,
We heard the loud
musicians play
The `Treues Liebes Herz' of Strauss.
Like strange mechanical grotesques,
Making
fantastic arabesques,
The shadows raced across the
blind.
We watched the ghostly dancers spin
To
sound of horn and violin,
Like black leaves wheeling
in the wind.
Like wire-pulled automatons,
Slim
silhouetted skeletons
Went sidling through the slow
quadrille.
They took each other by the hand,
And danced a stately saraband;
Their laughter echoed
thin and shrill.
Sometimes a clockwork puppet
pressed
A phantom lover to her breast,
Sometimes
they seemed to try to sing.
Sometimes a horrible
marionette
Came out, and smoked its cigarette
Upon
the steps like a live thing.
Then, turning to my
love, I said,
`The dead are dancing with the dead,
The dust is whirling with the dust.'
But she -she
heard the violin,
And left my side, and entered in:
Love passed into the house of lust.
Then suddenly
the tune went false,
The dancers wearied of the
waltz,
The shadows ceased to wheel and whirl.
And down the long and silent street,
The dawn, with
silver-sandalled feet,
Crept like a frightened girl.
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