The Harlot's House

~

We caught the tread of dancing feet,

We loitered down the moonlit street,

And stopped beneath the harlot's house.

~

Inside, above the din and fray,

We heard the loud musicians play

The "Treues Liebes Herz" of Strauss.

~

Like strange mechanical grotesques,

Making fantastic arabesques,

The shadows raced across the blind.

~

We watched the ghostly dancers spin

To sound of horn and violin,

Like black leaves wheeling in the wind.

~

Like wire-pulled automatons,

Slim silhouetted skeletons

Went sidling through the slow quadrille.

~

The took each other by the hand,

And danced a stately saraband;

Their laughter echoed thin and shrill.

~

Sometimes a clockwork puppet pressed

A phantom lover to her breast,

Sometimes they seemed to try to sing.

~

Sometimes a horrible marionette

Came out, and smoked its cigarette

Upon the steps like a live thing.

~

Then, turning to my love, I said,

"The dead are dancing with the dead,

The dust is whirling with the dust."

~

But she--she heard the violin,

And left my side, and entered in:

Love passed into the house of lust.

~

Then suddenly the tune went false,

The dancers wearied of the waltz,

The shadows ceased to wheel and whirl.

~

And down the long and silent street,

The dawn, with silver-sandalled feet,

Crept like a frightened girl.

~ Oscar Wilde