On Seeing Vedder’s “Pleiades”
I hear a burst of music on the night!
Look at the white whirl of their bodies, see
The sweep of arms seraphical and free,
And over their heads a rush of circling light,
That draws them on with mystery and might:
But O the wild dance and the deathless song,
And O the lifted faces glad and strong—
Eternal passion burning still and white!
But she who glances downward, who is she,
Her face stilled with the shadow of a pain?
The one who let all go for that mad chance?
And does some sudden gust of memory,
Bringing the earth, sweep back into the brain?...
But O the wild white whirl of the wild dance!