To Salomé at St. James’s

Flower of the ballet’s nightly mirth, Pleased with a trinket or a gown, Eternal as eternal earth You dance the centuries down. For you, my plaything, slight and light, Capricious, petulant and proud, With whom I sit and sup to-night Among the tawdry crowd, Are she whose swift and sandalled feet And postured girlish beauty won A pagan prize, for you unmeet, The head of Baptist John. And after ages, when you sit A princess less in birth than power, Freed from the theatre’s fume and heat To kill an idle hour, Here in the babbling room agleam With scarlet lips and naked arms And such rich jewels as beseem The painted damzel’s charms, Even now your tired and subtle face Bears record to the wondrous time When from your limbs’ lascivious grace Sprang forth your splendid crime. And though none deem it true, of those Who watch you in our banal age Like some stray fairy glide and pose Upon a London stage, Yet I to whom your frail caprice Turns for the moment ardent eyes Have seen the strength of love release Your sleeping memories. I too am servant to your glance, I too am bent beneath your sway, My wonder! My desire! who dance Men’s heads and hearts away. Sweet arbitress of love and death, Unchanging on time’s changing sands, You hold more lightly than a breath The world between your hands!