The Children Dancing

Away, sad thoughts, and teasing

Perplexities, away!

Let other blood go freezing,

We will be wise and gay.

For here is all heart-easing,

An ecstasy at play.

The children dancing, dancing,

Light upon happy feet,

Both eye and heart entrancing

Mingle, escape, and meet;

Come joyous-eyed and advancing

Or floatingly retreat.

Now slow, now swifter treading

Their paces timed and true,

An instant poised, then threading

A maze of printless clue,

Their motions smoothly wedding

To melody anew,

They sway in chime, and scatter

In looping circles; they

Are Music's airy matter,

And their feet move, the way

The raindrops shine and patter

On tossing flowers in May.

As if those flowers were singing

For joy of the clean air,

As if you saw them springing

To dance the breeze, so fair

The lissom bodies swinging,

So light the flung-back hair.

And through the mind enchanted

A happy river goes

By its own young carol haunted

And bringing where it flows

What all in the world has wanted

And who in this world knows?