Dance! Dance! Dance! Dance! Dance till the brain is red with speed! Dance till you fall! Lift your torches! Kiss your lovers until they bleed! Backward I draw your anguished hair Until your eyes are stretched with pain; Backward I press you until you cry, Your lips grow white, I kiss you again, I will take a torch and set you afire, I will break your body and fling it away. . . . Look, you are trembling. . . . Lie still, beloved! Lock your hands in my hair, and say Darling! darling! darling! darling! All night long till the break of day. Is it your heart I hear beneath me. . . . Or the far tolling of that tower? The voices are still that cried around us. . . . The woods grow still for the sacred hour. Rise, white lover! the day draws near. The grey trees lean to the east in fear. 'By the clear waters where once I died . . . .' Beloved, whose voice was this that cried? 'By the clear waters that reach the sun By the clear waves that starward run. . . . I found love's body and lost his soul, And crumbled in flame that should have annealed. . . How shall I ever again be whole, By what dark waters shall I be healed?' Silence. . . . the red leaves, one by one, Fall. Far off, the maenads run. Silence. Beneath my naked feet The veins of the red earth swell and beat. The dead leaves sigh on the troubled air, Far off the maenads bind their hair. . . . Hurry, beloved! the day comes soon. The fire is drawn from the heart of the moon. * * * * * The great bell cracks and falls at last. The moon whirls out. The sky grows still. Look, how the white cloud crosses the stars And suddenly drops behind the hill! Your eyes are placid, you smile at me, We sit in the room by candle-light. We peer in each other's veins and see No sign of the things we saw this night. Only, a song is in your ears, A song you have heard, you think, in dream: The song which only the demon hears, In the dark forest where maenads scream . . . 'By the clear waters where once I died . . . In the calm evening bright with stars . . . ' What do the strange words mean? you say,-- And touch my hand, and turn away. XIII. The half-shut doors through which we heard that music Are softly closed. Horns mutter down to silence. The stars whirl out, the night grows deep. Darkness settles upon us. A vague refrain Drowsily teases at the drowsy brain. In numberless rooms we stretch ourselves and sleep. Where have we been? What savage chaos of music Whirls in our dreams?--We suddenly rise in darkness, Open our eyes, cry out, and sleep once more. We dream we are numberless sea-waves languidly foaming A warm white moonlit shore;