Poetry Explorer

Classic and Contemporary Poetry

VALSE TRISTE, by                    
First Line: This night, compounded of all nights
Last Line: After the last encore. . . .
Alternate Author Name(s): Brownell, John A., Mrs.


This night, compounded of all nights,
This darkness dimpling into lights
Through fretwork of a million leaves
The sun at day recorded green,
Presents its stage, the practised scene
Of revelry. Here dripping eaves

Of stately senior elms beget
Through their tall stems the lift and feel
Of swooning waltz or pulsing reel,
Of minuet . . .
The absent are the damned. No stigma
Attaches to the bland enigma
Of headless hearts or mindless feet . . .
Now slippers, arrow-tipped and sweet,
Wear more than their own satin's glow,
Advance in saintly moons as though,
Hallowed for dancing, they are all
That bring their lustre to the ball . . .

Beneath the lanterns groomsmen wait,
The silly turnouts crowd the gate
Where china coach and giddy span
Convey but foottgear and a fan,
With tinkling laughter. Horses hoofs
Like raindrops on resounding roofs,
Awake the garden grass, the creeper
With tendrils tuned or flowery sleeper
Pale-capped with fragrance on its head,
Cool in some dim, dew-sheeted bed . . .
"What means this strange, ill-timed commotion
Profaning all the priestly air?"

A faceless man stands at the door
Gold braid and buttons, scarcely more,
Inferring ladies up the stair
In gorgeous pantomime. Each shoe
Flirtatiously accepts its cue --
The ball room opens like an ocean . . .
And now at last with anxious blur
Of sounds, the instruments confer
In maudlin doubt. Beset by fears,
The cello tries a tragic note,
Fails foolishly and clears its throat
Of tears . . .

A flute flares out. Remaining hid,
Gymnastic as a katydid,
The poignant violin is heard
In twitterings. So sings a bird
Before the pledge of daylight comes . . .
A pause, an argument of drums,
Then quickened by some magic yeast,
Speaking five languages at least,
With all that it can beg or borrow
Of Life, the music sounds. The straight,
Exclamatory figures mate
Like beauty to the breast of sorrow . . .
How often on a polished sea
Have others, drowned in ecstasy,
With such a pomp and circumstance
Died and been buried in the dance --
How old the youngest waltz must be!
Oh, partners of amazing grace,
As shallow as their light embrace
Like mist steal in to join the measure.
Frail rioters, enchanted twain,
With pale, transparent, drowsy heads,
Like children creeping from their beds
Intent on some forbidden pleasure,
They seek the well-loved floor again,
Unseen, unbidden, whirl them round
With silvered feet that make no sound,
And sail the room like phantom ships
With muted laughter on their lips . . .

Morose intrusion into bliss . . .
Can dead men share a night like this?
With or without a mortal soul,
A fly swims in the claret bowl,
Then leggily he seeks the casement,
Thinking perhaps in his abasement
To be unhinged for dancing now.
The nightingale is on the bough,
And, plagued to melancholy soon,
Will lift his tremors artfully,
Mistaking for the risen moon
A bald head on a balcony.

And for what sight would any barter
The glimpse of some sweet lady's garter
Adjusted shyly. Lovers walk
Along the terrace, laced in talk,
Festooning balustrade and hedges
With cobwebs of preposterous pledges!

Deep in the garden wall-flowers sit
Wishing that they might waltz a bit
As do the lily and the rose.
The shadows sway and intertwine
And on the lake the ripple goes
Elusive in its lost design.
And these shall dance, ever refreshed
When Time, the grim host, shall have threshed
Joy out of youth, replenishing
His tunes and toys. And these shall wing
Light waltzes down a festive floor
To strains out of the living loam
The dawn has seen the dancers home,
When like poor ghosts before the sun
The fiddles and the fiddlers done
After the last encore. . . .





Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!


Other Poems of Interest...
Home: PoetryExplorer.net