A Terpsichorean Recollection Poem by Alexander Anderson

I took her down a country dance,
And ever in its giddy wheeling
Her eyes beam'd forth the sweetest glance
That ever sent a poet reeling—
Dear eyes, within whose light I saw
The cherub angel's golden riddle;
I listen'd to its tender law,
And turn'd my back upon the fiddle.


How I got down that heavenly row
Of snowy skirts and smiling faces
I know not, nor can Cupid know,
Though held an adept in such cases.
I moved like some somnambulist,
But still in all the maze forgetting
No point of clasp and turn and twist,
And graceful whirl of pirouetting.


At length the dance was o'er, and I,
No longer bound to music's measure,
Had time to clasp her hand and sigh,
And whisper to her all my pleasure.
I breath'd into her willing ear,
While still the blush would rise and hover,
Nonsense for older heads to hear,
But highest wisdom to a lover.


I whisper'd of that wish'd-for time
When Love, with all his sweet caressings,
Would pour, with many a merry chime,
Upon our brows his choicest blessings.
And still her cheek took deeper glow,
And still her eyes gave sweeter glances,
Till—strange, in half an hour or so,
I smiled at all my built-up fancies.


For what with reels and other things,
Each with the like result attended,
And Cupid drawing in his wings,
I found my charmer grow less splendid—
In fact, I thought her very plain,
And wonder'd how the deuce a passion
Could e'er have seized my heart and brain,
Unless I wish'd to keep the fashion.


'Cui bono,' thus at times I cry,
That I should keep a heart so fickle,
That, seeing some sweet lip and eye,
Must needs its luckless owner tickle.
But if such fate be laid as tax
On those that ope the Muse's portals,
Then with some proser 'I go snacks,'
And link myself to sober mortals.