| |
| COMRADES, when the air is sweet, | |
| It is fair, in stately measure, | |
| With a sound of gliding feet, | |
| It is fair and very meet | |
| To be join’d in pleasure. | 5 |
| Listen to the rhythmic beat: | |
| Let us mingle, move and sway | |
| Solemnly as at some rite | |
| Of a festive mystic god, | |
| While the sunlight holds the day. | 10 |
| Comrades, is it not delight | |
| To be govern’d by the rod | |
| Of the music, and to go | |
| Moving, moving, moving slow? | |
| Very stately are your ways, | 15 |
| Stately—and the southern glow | |
| Of the sun is in your eyes: | |
| Under lids inclining low | |
| All the light of harvest days, | |
| And the gleam of summer skies | 20 |
| Tenderly reflected lies. | |
| May I not be one of you | |
| Even for this little space? | |
| Humbly I am fain to sue | |
| That our arms may interlace. | 25 |
| I am otherwise I know; | |
| Many books have made me sad: | |
| Yet indeed your stately slow | |
| Motion and its rhythmic flow | |
| Drive me, drive me, drive me mad. | 30 |
| Must I now, as always, gaze | |
| Patiently from far away | |
| At the pageant of the days?— | |
| Only let me live to-day! | |
| For your hair is ebon black, | 35 |
| And your eyes celestial blue; | |
| For your measure is so true, | |
| Slowly forward, slowly back— | |
| I would fain be one of you. | |
| Comrades, comrades!—but the sound | 40 |
| Of the music with a start | |
| Ceases, and you pass me by. | |
| Slowly from the dancing-ground | |
| To the tavern you depart. | |
| All the earth is silent grown | 45 |
| After so much joy, and I | |
| Suddenly am quite alone | |
| With the beating of my heart. | |
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