Why should he face the tear-salt waves,
When he can sing, or feast on fruit,
Dance to the silver-sobbing lute,
And all men seem his slaves?
No more to ship or sea we'll go,
To watch the land sink out of sight
Suffused by purple fumes of night,
Each heart weighed down with woe.
But under rustling fretted lace
Of leaves, we'll dance and stamp our feet
In frenzy, to the furious beat,
—The rhythm of all space.
Or watch each dappled fawn and elf
Spring from the green lairs where they hide;
Now every soul is multiplied
And communes with itself.
The softly sailing moon is now
A pendulum, hung in a vast
Blue bubble—so to mark our fast
Lithe movements to and fro.
Down from the sky the willing stars
Fall round each brow a crown to form;
Till feet and limbs, a rushing storm,
Dance whirling on in ecstasy.
The earth dances;
The earth dances;
Trees charge at us
Like horsemen;
Forests swoop
Down the hill,
Charging at us,
But we are brave,
Full of a fiery courage,
And go onward
Onward,
Through the galloping trees.
We shout
Glowing phrases
—Snatches of ineffable wit.
The frenzy in our feet
Must surely set the world afire.
Yet still the stars
Rain down their golden tremors of delight,
And the moon
Sweeps like a bird
Through the arch of space.
We, too,
Float downward
Gently
To soft shipwreck.
We, too,
Are of the kindred of the Pleiades;
Reel on our golden path
Down,
Down,
Through the curved emptiness of the heavens.