We caught the tread of dancing feet,
We loitered down the moonlit street,
And stopped beneath the harlot's house.
Inside, above the din and fray,
We heard the loud musicians play
The "Treues Liebes Herz" of Strauss.
Like strange mechanical grotesques,
Making fantastic arabesques,
The shadows raced across the blind.
We watched the ghostly dancers spin
To sound of horn and violin,
Like black leaves wheeling in the wind.
Like wire-pulled automatons,
Slim silhouetted skeletons
Went sidling through the slow quadrille.
They took each other by the hand,
And danced a stately saraband;
Their laughter echoed thin and shrill.
Sometimes a clockwork puppet pressed
A phantom lover to her breast,
Sometimes they seemed to try to sing.
Sometimes a horrible marionette
Came out, and smoked its cigarette
Upon the steps like a live thing.
Then, turning to my love, I said,
"The dead are dancing with the dead,
The dust is whirling with the dust."
But she—she heard the violin,
And left my side, and entered in:
Love passed into the house of lust.
Then suddenly the tune went false,
The shadows wearied of the waltz,
The shadows ceased to wheel and whirl.
And down the long and silent street,
The dawn, with silver-sandalled feet,
Crept like a frightened girl.
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Comments
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a potent and hypnotic piece with a powerful final stanza. Wilde never ceases to amaze...
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From guest manzanilla (contact)
i´m really impressed of this poem, for it contrasts so well the irresistible appeal of the night, of the forbidden and of everything out of the proper civic society with the fear of and distaste for it. the description is so full of images that you see the whole scene in front of your inner eye: the artificialty of everything: of the light, the colours, the amusement, the bought love, of alcohol and cigarettes...these creatures of the night appear so dead like dust in their great effort to feel something. they only live for the moment, for pleasure, satisfaction, amusement... And then passes "Love (...) into the house of lust"! the whole situation turns around for the girl is captured like a moth by the light. the beloved, white and innocent is appealed by the sin... finally: the end, which i like the most: the night ends and everything created by the night (entertainment, ...) and its creatures have to fade away... -
very clever. images galore.
Sometimes a clockwork puppet pressed
A phantom lover to her breast,
Sometimes they seemed to try to sing.
Sometimes a horrible marionette
Came out, and smoked its cigarette
Upon the steps like a live thing.
Then, turning to my love, I said,
"The dead are dancing with the dead,
The dust is whirling with the dust."
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