We caught the tread of dancing feet, <br />We loitered down the moonlit street, <br />And stopped beneath the harlot's house. <br /> <br />Inside, above the din and fray, <br />We heard the loud musicians play <br />The "Treues Liebes Herz" of Strauss. <br /> <br />Like strange mechanical grotesques, <br />Making fantastic arabesques, <br />The shadows raced across the blind. <br /> <br />We watched the ghostly dancers spin <br />To sound of horn and violin, <br />Like black leaves wheeling in the wind. <br /> <br />Like wire-pulled automatons, <br />Slim silhouetted skeletons <br />Went sidling through the slow quadrille. <br /> <br />They took each other by the hand, <br />And danced a stately saraband; <br />Their laughter echoed thin and shrill. <br /> <br />Sometimes a clockwork puppet pressed <br />A phantom lover to her breast, <br />Sometimes they seemed to try to sing. <br /> <br />Sometimes a horrible marionette <br />Came out, and smaoked its cigarette <br />Upon the steps like a live thing. <br /> <br />Then, turning to my love, I said, <br />"The dead are dancing with the dead, <br />The dust is whirling with the dust." <br /> <br />But she--she heard the violin, <br />And left my side, and entered in: <br />Love passed into the house of lust. <br /> <br />Then suddenly the tune went false, <br />The shadows wearied of the waltz, <br />The shadows ceased to wheel and whirl. <br /> <br />And down the long and silent street, <br />The dawn, with silver-sandalled feet, <br />Crept like a frightened girl.<br /><br />Oscar Wilde<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/the-harlot-s-house/
