"THE CHARGE OF THE LIGHT BALLET."
Half a leg, half a leg,
Half a leg onward,
All before the foot-lights
Danced the one hundred.
Crash went the German band.
Supes strew'd the stage with sand;
All before the foot-lights
Danced the one hundred.
"Forward, the light ballet!"
Was there a coryphée
Who couldn't help feeling
Some one had blundered?
Turned on the calcium light,
Glittered each spangled tight,
Kicked they with main and might;
All before the foot-lights
Danced the one hundred.
Bald heads to right of them,
Bald heads to left of them,
Bald heads in front of them
Shouted and thundered;
Cynosures of every eye,
Boldly they kicked and high,
Regardless of life and limb,
Into the very sky
Kicked the one hundred,
Flashed all their fleshings bare,
Flashed as they turned in air,
Crazing the bald heads there,
In orchestra chair, while
All the house wondered.
On light, fantastic toe,
Pirouette and pas de Seaux,
Premier and coryphée
Reeled from the vertigo,
Shattered and sundered,
And then they danced back,
But not—not the one hundred.
Bald heads to right of them,
Bald heads to left of them,
Bald heads in front of them
Shouted and thundered;
Bravoed the dilettante,
While each old Bonfanti,
With split raiment and scanty,
Danced back from the jaws of death,
Back from the—(see Dante),
All that was left of them,
Left of one hundred.
When can their glory fade?
Oh, the high kicks they made!
All the house wondered.
Fling up your big bouquet,
Bald-headed Y. M. C. A.!
Honour the light ballet,
Noble one hundred!
From The Carbonate Chronicle, Leadville, Colorado, January 27, 1883.