Night-Scented Stock

 White, white in the milky night
The moon danced over a tree.

"Wouldn't it be lovely to swim in the lake!"
Someone whispered to me.


"Oh, do-do-do!" cooed someone else,
And clasped her hands to her chin.

"I should so love to see the white bodies--
All the white bodies jump in!"

The big dark house hid secretly
Behind the magnolia and the spreading pear-tree;
But there was a sound of music--music rippled and ran
Like a lady laughing behind her fan,
Laughing and mocking and running away.
.
.

"Come into the garden--it's as light as day!"

"I can't dance to that Hungarian stuff,
The rhythm in it is not passionate enough,"
Said somebody.
 "I absolutely refuse.
.
.
.
"
But he took off his socks and his shoes
And round he spun.
 "It's like Hungarian fruit dishes
Hard and bright--a mechanical blue!"
His white feet flicked in the grass like fishes.
.
.

Someone cried: "I want to dance, too!"

But one with a queer Russian ballet head
Curled up on a blue wooden bench instead.

And another, shadowy--shadowy and tall--
Walked in the shadow of the dark house wall,
Someone beside her.
 It shone in the gloom,
His round grey hat, like a wet mushroom.


"Don't you think perhaps.
.
.
" piped someone's flute.

"How sweet the flowers smell!" I heard the other say.

Somebody picked a wet, wet pink,
Smelled it and threw it away.

"Is the moon a virgin or is she a harlot?"
Asked somebody.
 Nobody would tell.

The faces and the hands moved in a pattern
As the music rose and fell,
In a dancing, mysterious, moon-bright pattern
Like flowers nodding under the sea.
.
.


The music stopped and there was nothing left of them
But the moon dancing over the tree.

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