Public-domain source text

Ballet

by William Carlos Williams

From Standard Ebooks · standardebooks/william-carlos-williams_poetry

Are you not weary, great gold cross shining in the wind⁠— are you not weary of seeing the stars turning over you and the sun going to his rest and you frozen with a great lie that leaves you rigid as a knight on a marble coffin?
—and you, higher, still, robin, untwisting a song from the bare top-twigs, are you not weary of labor, even the labor of a song?
Come down⁠—join me for I am lonely.
First it will be a quiet pace to ease our stiffness but as the west yellows you will be ready!
Here in the middle of the roadway we will fling ourselves round with dust lilies till we are bound in their twining stems! We will tear their flowers with arms flashing!
And when the astonished stars push aside their curtains they will see us fall exhausted where wheels and the pounding feet of horses will crush forth our laughter.

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This is a source transcription from Standard Ebooks, published in Past Poetry’s public-domain archive without line-by-line editorial notes. Public-domain source edition. Availability can vary by territory.

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