Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, THE CHILD-DANCERS, by PERCY MACKAYE


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

THE CHILD-DANCERS, by                     Poet's Biography
First Line: A bomb has fallen over notre dame
Last Line: "bon soir! Bon soir! — good night!"
Alternate Author Name(s): Mackaye, Percy Wallace
Subject(s): Dancing & Dancers


A bomb has fallen over Notre Dame:
Germans have burned another Belgian town:
Russians quelled in the east: England in qualm:

I closed my eyes, and laid the paper down.

Gray ledge and moor-grass and pale bloom of light
By pale blue seas!
What laughter of a child world-sprite,
Sweet as the horns of lone October bees,
Shrills the faint shore with mellow, old delight?
What elves are these
In smocks gray-blue as sea and ledge,
Dancing upon the silvered edge
Of darkness — each ecstatic one
Making a happy orison,
With shining limbs, to the low-sunken sun? —
See: now they cease
Like nesting birds from flight:
Demure and debonair
They troop beside their hostess' chair
To make their bedtime courtesies:
"Spokoinoi notchi! — Gute Nacht!
Bon soir! Bon soir! — Good night!"
What far-gleaned lives are these
Linked in one holy family of art? —
Dreams: dreams once Christ and Plato dreamed:
How fair their happy shades depart!

Dear God! how simple it all seemed,
Till once again
Before my eyes the red type quivered: Slain:
Ten thousand of the enemy. —
Then laughter! laughter from the ancient sea
Sang in the gloaming: Athens! Galilee!
And elfin voices called from the extinguished light: —
"Spokoinoi notchi! — Gute Nacht!
Bon soir! Bon soir! — Good night!"





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