<p>The Dance by Pablo Neruda</p><p>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.</p><p>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. </p><p>We romped until the pans Slid from the kitchen shelf; My mother's countenance Could not unfrown itself. </p><p>The hand that held my wrist Was battered on one knuckle; At every step you missed My right ear scraped a buckle. </p><p>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</p><p>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:</p><p>"I am lonely, lonely,</p><p>I was born to be lonely,</p><p>I am best so!"</p><p>If I admire my arms, my face, my shoulders, flanks, buttocks against the yellow drawn shades,—</p><p>Who shall say I am not the happy genius of my household?</p>