We danced beneath the dancing moon, All night, beside the dancing sea, With tripping toes and skipping heels: And all about us friendly seals Like Christian folk were dancing reels Unto the fiddle’s endless tune That kept on spinning merrily As though it never meant to stop. And never once the snow-white maid A moment stayed To take a breath, Though I was fit to drop: And while those wild eyes challenged me, I knew as well as well could be I must keep step with that young girl, Though we should dance to death. Then with a skirl The fiddle broke: The moon went out: The sea stopped dead: And, in a twinkling, all the rout Of dancing folk had fled... And in the chill bleak dawn I woke Upon the naked rock, alone. They’ve brought me far from Skua Isle... I laugh to think they do not know That as, all day, I chip the stone, Among my fellows here inland, I smell the sea-wrack on the shore... And see her snowy-tossing hand, And meet again her merry smile... And dream I’m dancing all the while, I’m dancing ever, heel and toe, With a seal-maiden, white as snow, On that moonshiny Island-strand, For ever and for evermore. THE SLAG Among bleak hills of mounded slag they walked, ’Neath sullen evening skies that seemed to sag O’er-burdened by the belching smoke, and lie Upon their aching foreheads, dense and dank, Till both felt youth within them fail and flag-- Even as the flame which shot a fiery rag A fluttering moment through the murky sky Above the black blast-furnaces, then sank Again beneath the iron bell close-bound-- And it was all that they could do to drag Themselves along, ’neath that dead-weight of smoke, Over the cinder-blasted, barren ground. Though fitfully and fretfully she talked, He never turned his eyes to her, or spoke: And as he slouched with her along the track That skirted a stupendous, lowering mound, With listless eyes, and o’er-strained sinews slack, She bit a petted, puckered lip, and frowned To think she ever should be walking out With this tongue-tied, slow-witted, hulking lout, As cold and dull and lifeless as the slag.