Opals (Custance)/The Music of Dvorák
The Music of Dvorák
Beneath a golden dome, an emerald floor,Crowded with dancing girls . . . the flash of feet,The flutter of loose robes, the rhythmic beatOf drums . . . The singing of sad violins,The clash of cymbals . . . So the music winsTo fullest melody . . . and through it ringsThe silver clink of anklets and the sweetTinkling sound of little shaken bells!
Lightly each coryphée her sister swings,Mad with the mystic measure of the dance.Then suddenly they pause, as if by chance,Motionless . . . as the flutes and viols are stilled. Each slender sinuous body, spell-bound, thrilledWith triumph in its last, most perfect pose . . .Each lovely head thrown back, as in a tranceImmovable they stand in glittering rows.······
Silence and darkness! . . . was it then a dream?Entangled in the passionate mysteryAnd magic of your music, which to meIs ever as the shadow of soft wingsShutting away all sense of sordid things,All sight of that inscrutable Sphinx called "Life". . . So weary souls drift vision-ward, and see,Looking between the heavy lids of sleep,Reflections of themselves as they might be!