The Children Dancing
Away, sad thoughts, and teasing
Perplexities, away!
Let other blood go freezing,
We will be wise and gay;
For here is all heart-easing,
An ecstasy at play!
The children dancing, dancing,
Light upon happy feet,
Both eye and heart entrancing,
Mingle, escape, and meet,
Come joyous-eyed advancing
And floatingly retreat.
Now slow, now swifter treading
Their paces timed and true,
An instant poised, then threading
A maze of printless clue,
The music smoothly wedding
To motions ever new.
They launch in chime, and scatter
In looping ripples; they
Are Music's airy matter,
And their feet move, the way
The raindrops shine and patter
On tossing flowers in May.
As if those flowers were singing
For joy of the bright air,
As if you saw them springing
To dance the breeze — so fair
The lissom bodies swinging,
So light the flung-back hair.
And through the mind enchanted
A happy river goes,
By its own young carol haunted
And bringing, where it flows,
What all the world has wanted
But who in this world knows?