They drift down the hall together; <br /> He smiles in her lifted eyes. <br />Like waves of that mighty river <br /> The strains of the ‘Danube’ rise. <br />They float on its rhythmic measure, <br /> Like leaves on a summer stream; <br />And here, in this scene of pleasure, <br /> I bury my sweet dead dream. <br /> <br />Through the cloud of her dusky tresses, <br /> Like a star, shines out her face; <br />And the form of his strong arm presses <br /> Is sylph-like in its grace. <br />As a leaf on the bounding river <br /> Is lost in the seething sea, <br />I know that for ever and ever <br /> My dream is lost to me. <br /> <br />And still the viols are playing <br /> That grand old wordless rhyme; <br />And still those two are swaying <br /> In perfect tune and time. <br />If the great bassoons that mutter, <br /> If the clarinets that blow, <br />Were given the chance to utter <br /> The secret things they know. <br /> <br />Would the lists of the slain who slumber <br /> On the Danube’s battle-plains <br />The unknown hosts outnumber <br /> Who die ‘neath the ‘Danube’s’ strains? <br />Those fall where the cannons rattle, <br /> ‘Mid the rain of shot and shell; <br />But these, in a fiercer battle, <br /> Find death in the music’s swell. <br /> <br />With the river’s roar of passion <br /> Is blended the dying groan; <br />But here, in the halls of fashion, <br /> Hearts break, and make no moan. <br />And the music, swelling and sweeping, <br /> Like the river, knows it all; <br />But none are counting or keeping <br /> The lists of those who fall.<br /><br />Ella Wheeler Wilcox<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/the-beautiful-blue-danube/
