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This dance of death which sounds so musically Was sure intended for the corpse de ballet.
O give me new figures! I can't go on dancing The same that were taught me ten seasons ago; The schoolmaster over the land is advancing, Then why is the master of dancing so slow? It is such a bore to be always caught tripping In dull uniformity year after year; Invent something new, and you'll set me a skipping: I want a new figure to dance with my Dear!
A thousand hearts beat happily; and when Music arose with its voluptuous swell, Soft eyes look'd love to eyes which spake again, And all went merry as a marriage bell.
On with the dance! let joy be unconfin'd; No sleep till morn, when Youth and Pleasure meet.
And then he danced;--all foreigners excel The serious Angles in the eloquence Of pantomime;--he danced, I say right well, With emphasis, and also with good sense-- A thing in footing indispensable: He danced without theatrical pretence, Not like a ballet-master in the van Of his drill'd nymphs, but like a gentleman.
Endearing Waltz--to thy more melting tune Bow Irish jig, and ancient rigadoon. Scotch reels, avaunt! and country-dance forego Your future claims to each fantastic toe! Waltz--Waltz alone--both legs and arms demands, Liberal of feet, and lavish of her hands.
Hot from the hands promiscuously applied, Round the slight waist, or down the glowing side.
Imperial Waltz! imported from the Rhine , Long be thine import from all duty free, And hock itself be less esteem'd than thee.
The truest expression of a people is in its dances and its music. Bodies never lie.
What! the girl I adore by another embraced? What! the balm of her breath shall another man taste? What! pressed in the dance by another's man's knee? What! panting recline on another than me? Sir, she's yours; you have pressed from the grape its fine blue, From the rosebud you've shaken the tremulous dew; What you've touched you may take. Pretty waltzer--adieu!
Such pains, such pleasures now alike are o'er, And beaus and etiquette shall soon exist no more At their speed behold advancing Modern men and women dancing; Step and dress alike express Above, below from heel to toe, Male and female awkwardness. Without a hoop, without a ruffle, One eternal jig and shuffle, Where's the air and where's the gait? Where's the feather in the hat? Where the frizzed toupee? and where Oh! where's the powder for the hair?
Alike all ages: dames of ancient days Have led their children through the mirthful maze, And the gay grandsire, skill'd in gestic lore, Has frisk'd beneath the burden of threescore.
And the dancing has begun now, And the dancers whirl round gaily In the waltz's giddy mazes, And the ground beneath them trembles.
Twelve dancers are dancing, and taking no rest, And closely their hands together are press'd; And soon as a dance has come to a close, Another begins, and each merrily goes.
Merrily, merrily whirled the wheels of the dizzying dances Under the orchard-trees and down the path to the meadows; Old fold and young together, and children mingled among them.
He who esteems the Virginia reel A bait to draw saints from their spiritual weal, And regards the quadrille as a far greater knavery Than crushing His African children with slavery, Since all who take part in a waltz or cotillon Are mounted for hell on the devil's own pillion, Who, as every true orthodox Christian well knows, Approaches the heart through the door of the toes.