|
|
Classic and Contemporary Poetry
THE BALLERINA'S PROGRESS, OR THE POETRY OF MOTION, by FREDERICK WILLIAM HENRY MYERS Poet's Biography First Line: With mantling cheek, with palpitating breast Last Line: And her unbent bow springs into the sun. Alternate Author Name(s): Myers, Frederic Subject(s): Ballet; Dancing & Dancers | |||
I. THE SCHOOL WITH mantling cheek, with palpitating breast, See the sweet novice glide among the rest! O see her from those timorous shoulders fair Fling back the tossing torrent of her hair! See half diaphanous and half displayed The shy limbs gleam, the magic of the maid! Nor at first seeing wouldst thou deem it true Such fairy feet such daring deeds could do, Or Art inborn the maiden shame dispel From those sweet eyes, that aspect lovable;— Yet little by little, as in her ears begin The thrill and scream of flute and violin,— O little by little and in a wondrous way The hid soul hearkens and the limbs obey;— As though the starry nature, quenched and hid Between things impotent and things forbid, Found thus an air and thus a passion, thus Were crowned and culminant and amorous, And dared the best and did it, and became Vocal, a flying and irradiant flame. Thus when the Pythian maid no more can bear The god intolerable and thundering air, Nor shifting colour and heaving heart contain Longer the quenchless prophesying pain,— The more she strives from out her breast to throw The indwelling monarch of the lute and bow, The more, the more will mastering Phœbus tire Her proud lips frenetic and eyes of fire, Till last, in Delphic measure, Delphic tone, Bows the wild head, and speaks, and is his own. II. THE STAGE Then flame on flame the immense proscænium glows With magic counterchange of gold and rose, Then roar on roar, undying and again, Crash the great bars of that prodigious strain,— Fire flashed on fire and sound on thunder hurled Bear from their midst the Wonder of the World. Lightly she comes, as though no weight she ware, The very daughter and delight of air,— Lightly she comes, preluding, lightly starts The breathless rapture to a thousand hearts, The high flutes hush to meet her, and the drum Thro' all his deep self trembles till she come:— Then with a rush, as though the notes had known After long hope their empress and their own, She and the music bound, and high and free Thro' light and air the music leaps and she:— So bright, so coruscating, Iris so Slides the long arch of her effulgent bow; Rose in her wake and azure on her way A thousand tints bedew the Olympian day;— She touches earth, and all those hues are one, And her unbent bow springs into the sun. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...FAMED DANCER DIES OF PHOSPHORUS POISONING by RICHARD HOWARD ROSE AND MURRAY by CONRAD AIKEN A DANCER'S LIFE by DONALD JUSTICE DANCING WITH THE DOG by SUSAN KENNEDY SONG FROM A COUNTRY FAIR by LEONIE ADAMS THE CHILDREN DANCING by LAURENCE BINYON ON A GRAVE AT GRINDELWALD by FREDERICK WILLIAM HENRY MYERS |
| |