The harlot’s house

We caught the tread of dancing feet
We loitered down the moonlit street
And stopped beneath the harlot's house

Inside, above the din and fray
We heard the loud musicians play
The 'Treues Liebes Herz' of Strauss

Like strange mechanical grotesques
Making fantastic arabesques
The shadows raced across the blind

We watched the ghostly dancers spin
To sound of horn and violin
Like black leaves wheeling in the wind

Like wire-pulled automatons
Slim silhouetted skeletons
Went sidling through the slow quadrille

They took each other by the hand
And danced a stately saraband;
Their laughter echoed thin and shrill

Sometimes a clockwork puppet pressed
A phantom lover to her breast
Sometimes they seemed to try to sing

Sometimes a horrible marionette
Came out, and smoked its cigarette
Upon the steps like a live thing

Then, turning to my love, I said
"The dead are dancing with the dead
The dust is whirling with the dust."

But she--she heard the violin
And left my side, and entered in:
Love passed into the house of Lust

Then suddenly the tune went false
The dancers wearied of the waltz
The shadows ceased to wheel and whirl

And down the long and silent street
The dawn, with silver-sandalled feet
Crept like a frightened girl