In the Ball-room
In the Ball-room
Original Text
Caprices: Poems by Theodore Wratislaw (London: Gay and Bird, 1893): 12. Facsimile edition (New York and London: Garland, 1984). PR 6045 R34 C3 1984
1Here where the swaying dancers float,
2The heady perfume swimming round
3Your slender arms and virginal throat
4Thrills me though riper loves abound.
5The passionate eyes and lids of her
6Whose face gleams white in many a fold
7Of coiling wondrous sombre hair,
8The blue eyes in the wreath of gold,
9These turn to me in vain, who prize
10You more than all the loves and lyres,
11For from your unfilled corsage rise
12The perfumes that my soul desires.
13Ah might I dance for ever, bent
14Toward your bosom's clouded gleam,
15And let the lilies' acrid scent
16Withhold me in the world of dream!
RPO poem Editors
Ian Lancashire
RPO Edition
2005
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