Eight Harvard Poets/Escape

ESCAPE

THEY danced beneath the stars, a crazy rout
With antic steps that had some little grace;
And one leapt high with song and frenzied shout,
And one ran silent with a gleaming face.

They danced until the shy moon looking down
Deemed herself lost above some Grecian glade;
A mile away the trim New England town
Echoed the Bacchanalian din they made.

And still they danced, until the moon sank low,
Blushing a little, and night's diadem
Of stars grew pale before the eastern glow. …
And with the dawn their keepers came for them.