CARMENCITA.
(An Impression.)
"O east is east, and west is west
And never the twain shall meet."
And the dance of Spain is one of the twain
To the English Man in the Street.
We love the trick of the lofty kick
And the muscular display
Of the nymph who has leapt at a muslin hoop
And stopp'd in her flight half-way.
A plain, blunt girl in the stormy swirl
Of accordion pleats and laces,
Tho' she cannot dance, if she spin and prance,
Is numbered among the Graces.
For heel and toe our hearts can glow
And the feats of the rhythmic clog,
And a poem of motion wells forth in the notion
Of a Serpentine Dancing Dog.
But the dancer's art, of her life a part,
A song of the wordless soul
With a tale to tell, like the music's swell,
Too large for the word's control,
That goes not down in London town
Where dogg'd conventions stick,
And dancers still must charm with frill,
Or "make shymnastic drick."
As the jungle king with his wrathful spring,
To the lamb that aptly bleats,
As the trumpet's blare to the palsied air
Of that which plays in pleats,
So is east to west, with its sun-born zest,
With fire at the quick heart's core,
And passions bold as the ardent gold
Of the sun on a southern shore.