Edgar Lee Masters (Эдгар Ли Мастерс)

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?

1. Lambert Hutchins
2. Calvin Campbell
3. Jonathan Houghton
4. Washington McNeely
5. Clarence Fawcett

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Количество обращений к стихотворению: 1735

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