THE ROOM OF MIRRORS

I saw a room where many feet were dancing.

The ceiling and the wall were mirrors glancing

Both flames of candles and the heaven's light,

Though windows there were none for air or flight.

The room was in a form polygonal

Reached by a little door and narrow hall.

One could behold them enter for the dance,

And waken as it were out of a trance,

And either singly or with some one whirl:

The old, the young, full livers, boy and girl.

And every panel of the room was just

A mirrored door through which a hand was thrust

Here, there, around the room, a soul to seize

Whereat a scream would rise, but no surcease

Of music or of dancing, save by him

Drawn through the mirrored panel to the dim

And unknown space behind the flashing mirrors,

And by his partner struck through by the terrors

Of sudden loss.

And looking I could see

That scarcely any dancer here could free

His eyes from off the mirrors, but would gaze

Upon himself or others, till a craze

Shone in his eyes thus to anticipate

The hand that took each dancer soon or late.

Some analyzed themselves, some only glanced,

Some stared and paled and then more madly danced.

One dancer only never looked at all.

He seemed soul captured by the carnival.

There were so many dancers there he loved,

He was so greatly by the music moved,

He had no time to study his own face

There in the mirrors as from place to place

He quickly danced.

Until I saw at last

This dancer by the whirling dancers cast

Face full against a mirrored panel where

Before he could look at himself or stare

He plunged through to the other side — and quick,

As water closes when you lift the stick,

The mirrored panel swung in place and left

No trace of him, as‘ twere a magic trick.

But all his partners thus so soon bereft

Went dancing to the music as before.

But I saw faces in that mirrored door

Anatomizing their forced smiles and watching

Their faces over shoulders, even matching

Their terror with each other's to repress

A growing fear in seeing it was less

Than some one else's, or to ease despair

By looking in a face who did not care,

While watching for the hand that through some door

Caught a poor dancer from the dancing floor

With every time-beat of the orchestra.

What is this room of mirrors? Who can say?