My stiff-spread arms
Break into sudden gesture;
My feet seize upon the rhythm;
My hands drag it upwards:
Thus I create the dance.
I drink of the red bowl of the sunlight:
I swim through seas of rain:
I dig my toes into earth:
I taste the smack of the wind:
I am myself:
I live.
The temples of the gods are forgotten or in ruins:
Professors are still arguing about the past and the future:
I am sick of reading marginal notes on life,
I am weary of following false banners:
I desire nothing more intensely or completely than this present;
The iridescent vibrations of midsummer light
Dancing, dancing, suddenly flickering and quivering
Like little feet or the movement of quick hands clapping,
Or the rustle of furbelows or the clash of polished gems.
The palpitant mosaic of the midday light
Colliding, sliding, leaping and lingering:
O, I could lie on my back all day,
And mark the mad ballet of the midsummer sky.
I dance:
I exist in motion:
A wind-shaken flower spilling my drops in the sunlight.
I feel the muscles bending, relaxing beneath me;
I direct the rippling sweep of the lines of my body;
Its impact crashes through the thin walls of the atmosphere,
I dance.
About me whirls
The sombre hall, the gaudy stage, the harsh glare of the footlights,
And in the brains of thousands watching
Little flames leap quivering to the music of my effort.
I have danced:
I have expressed my soul
In unbroken rhythm,
Sorrow, and flame.
I am tired: I would be extinguished beneath your beating hands.
Bring Kateen-beug and Maurya Jude
To dance in Beg-Innish,
And when the lads (they’re in Dunquin)
Have sold their crabs and fish,
Wave fawny shawls and call them in,
And call the little girls who spin,
And seven weavers from Dunquin,
To dance in Beg-Innish.
I’ll play you jigs, and Maurice Kean,
Where nets are laid to dry,
I’ve silken strings would draw a dance
From girls are lame or shy;
Four strings I’ve brought from Spain and France
To make your long men skip and prance,
Till stars look out to see the dance
Where nets are laid to dry.
You’ve plucked a curlew, drawn a hen,
Washed the shirts of seven men,
You’ve stuffed my pillow, stretched the sheet,
And filled the pan to wash your feet,
You’ve cooped the pullets, wound the clock,
And rinsed the young men’s drinking crock;
And now we’ll dance to jigs and reels,
Nailed boots chasing girls’ naked heels,
Until your father’ll start to snore,
And Jude, now you’re married, will stretch on the floor.
Only a few hours!
We danced like wind,
Our faces like noon flowers
On one slim stem were lifted, turned aside.
You flew, I followed, matched your stride,
And held your pause, and swung and parted wide.
Only a few hours !
We danced like wind,
Thirsty as blown flowers,
Heavy lidded, fearful eyed.
And Dick said, "Look what I have found!"
And when we saw we danced around,
And made our feet just tip the ground.
We skipped our toes and sang, "Oh-lo.
Oh-who, oh-who, oh what do you know!
Oh-who, oh-hi, oh-loo, kee-lo!"
We clapped our hands and sang, "Oh-ee!"
It made us jump and laugh to see
The little new moon above the tree.
O GIRL with honey-coloured hair,
And will you come and dance with me ?
The night is dark but you can spare
Light from your eyes for both to see,
And in the shade of trees divine
Like a whirled torch your hair will shine.
So dance apart and dance away ;
The rest about the lanterns gather,
But there is light for two to play
In any place where we're together,
And there is soft long grass and shadow
Beneath the rick across the meadow.
For love in darkness is at ease
And likes no candle save the light
Of kindled eyes and glowing tress
And bodies luminous with delight.
Give away her gowns,
Give away her shoes;
She has no more use
For her fragrant gowns;
Take them all down,
Blue, green, blue,
Lilac, pink, blue,
From their padded hangers;
She will dance no more
In her narrow shoes;
Sweep her narrow shoes
From the closet floor.
Sad as he sits on the white sea-stone
And the suave sea chuckles, and turns to the moon,
And the moon significant smiles at the cliffs and
the boulders.
He sits like a shade by the flood alone
While I dance a tarantella on the rocks, and the
croon
Of my mockery mocks at him over the waves'
bright shoulders.
What can I do but dance alone,
Dance to the sliding sea and the moon,
For the moon on my breast and the air on my limbs
and the foam on my feet?
For surely this earnest man has none
Of the night in his soul, and none of the tune
Of the waters within him; only the world's old
You have come your way, I have come my way;
You have stepped across your people, carelessly, hurting them all;
I have stepped across my people, and hurt them in spite of my care.
But steadily, surely, and notwithstanding
We have come our ways and met at last
Here in this upper room.
Here the balcony
Overhangs the street where the bullock-wagons slowly
Go by with their loads of green and silver birch-trees
For the feast of Corpus Christi.
Here from the balcony
We look over the growing wheat, where the jade-green river
Goes between the pine-woods,
Over and beyond to where the many mountains
Stand in their blueness, flashing with snow and the morning.
You have not heard my love’s dark throat,
Slow-fluting like a reed,
Release the perfect golden note
She caged there for my need.
Her walk is like the replica
Of some barbaric dance
Wherein the soul of Africa
Is winged with arrogance.
And yet so light she steps across
The ways her sure feet pass,
She does not dent the smoothest moss
Or bend the thinnest grass.
My love is dark as yours is fair,
Yet lovelier I hold her
Than listless maids with pallid hair,
And blood that’s thin and colder.