Poem by Ella Wheeler Wilcox

A Dirge

Death and a dirge at midnight;
   Yet never a soul in the house
Heard anything more than the throb and beat
   Of a beautiful waltz of Strauss.

Dead, dead, dead, and staring,
   With a ghastly smile on its face;
But the world saw only laughing eyes
   And roses, and billows of lace.

Floating and whirling together,
   Into the beautiful night,
How little you dreamed of the ghastly thing
   I was hiding away from your sight.

Meeting your dark eyes’ splendour,
   Feeling your warm, sweet breath,
How could you know that my passionate heart
   Had died a horrible death?

Died in its fever and fervour,
   Died in its beautiful bloom;
And that waltz of Strauss was a funeral dirge,
   Leading the way to the tomb.

But you held my hand at parting,
   And I smiled back a gay good night;
And you never knew of the ghastly corpse
   I was hiding away from your sight.

Yet whenever I hear the Danube--
   Under its pulsing strain,
I catch the wail of the funeral dirge,
   And my heart dies over again.

1. The Birth of the Orchid
2. The Black Charger
3. All the World
4. At Set of Sun
5. The Call (All wantonly in hours of joy)

Thomas Parsons A Dirge ("Slowly tread, and gently bear")

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