The Dance by Pablo Neruda

She is young. Have I the right Even to name her? Child, It is not love I offer Your quick limbs, your eyes; Only the barren homage Of an old man whom time Crucifies. Take my hand A moment in the dance, Ignoring its sly pressure, The dry rut of age, And lead me under the boughs Of innocence. Let me smell My youth again in your hair.

My Papa’s Waltz by Theodore Roethke The whiskey on your breath Could make a small boy dizzy; But I hung on like death: Such waltzing was not easy.

We romped until the pans Slid from the kitchen shelf; My mother's countenance Could not unfrown itself.

The hand that held my wrist Was battered on one knuckle; At every step you missed My right ear scraped a buckle.

You beat time on my head With a palm caked hard by dirt, Then waltzed me off to bed Still clinging to your shirt. Danse Russe, William Carlos Williams

If when my wife is sleeping and the baby and Kathleen are sleeping and the sun is a flame-white disc in silken mists above shining trees,— if I in my north room dance naked, grotesquely before my mirror waving my shirt round my head and singing softly to myself:

"I am lonely, lonely,

I was born to be lonely,

I am best so!"

If I admire my arms, my face, my shoulders, flanks, buttocks against the yellow drawn shades,—

Who shall say I am not the happy genius of my household?