See with floating tread the bright pair whirl in a wave-like
Swing, and the wingÈd foot scarce gives a touch to the floor.
Say, is it shadows that flit unclogg'd by the load of the body?
Say, is it elves that weave fairy-wings under the moon?
So rolls the curling smoke through air on the breath of the zephyr;
So sways the light canoe borne on the silvery lake.
—Bounds the well-taught foot on the sweet-flowing wave of the measure;
Whispering musical strains buoy up the aËry forms.
Now, as if in its rush it would break the chain of the dancers,
Dives an adventurous pair into the thick of the throng.
Quick before them a pathway is formed, and closes behind them;
As by a magical hand, open'd and shut is the way.
Now it is lost to the eye; into wild confusion resolvÈd—
Lo! that revolving world loses its orderly frame.
No! from the mass there it gaily emerges and glides from the tangle;
Order resumes her sway, only with alterÈd charm.
Vanishing still, it still reappears, the revolving creation,
And, deep-working, a law governs the aspects of change.
Say, how is it that forms ever passing are ever restorÈd?
How still fixity stays, even where motion most reigns?
How each, master and free, by his own heart shaping his pathway,
Finds in the hurrying maze simply the path that he seeks?
This thou would'st know? 'Tis the might divine of harmony's empire;
She in the social dance governs the motions of each.
She, like the Goddess[5] Severe, with the golden bridle of order,
Tames and guides at her will wild and tumultuous strength.
And around thee in vain the word its harmonies utters
If thy heart be not swept on in the stream of the strain,
—Not by the measure of life which beats through all beings around thee,
—Not by the whirl of the dance, which through the vacant abyss
Launches the blazing suns in the spacious sweeps of their orbits.
Order rules in thy sports: so let it rule in thy acts.