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| The Harlot's House by Oscar Wilde Once in a great while one comes upon a wondrous find. For me, it was a slim volume of a rather obscure poem by Oscar Wilde, published in 1910 and Illustrated with a fascinating style by Irish poet and artist Althea Gyles. I have no idea if the book is rare, but the illustrations, which didn't scan as well as I'd hoped, warrant a wider audience. With this in mind, we are reproducing the complete poem and the illustrations for you to enjoy. If you have any information about this book, we'd be most happy to hear about it. Enjoy! Janna |
| "We caught the tread of dancing feet" |
| WE caught the tread of dancing feel, 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 Leibes 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, At dawn, with silver-sandalled feet, Crept like a frightened girl. |
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| OSCAR WILDE |
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| "The shadows raced across the blind." |
| "They took each other by the hand and danced a stately saraband;" |
| "Sometimes a horrible marionette Came out, and smoked a cigarette." |
| "The dead are dancing with the dead" |