Ella Wheeler Wilcox (Элла Уилкокс)
The Beautiful Blue Danube
[With "Blue Danube Waltz" as musical accompaniment.] They drift down the hall together, He smiles in her lifted eyes; Like waves of that mighty river, The strains of the "Danube" rise. They float on its rhythmic measure, Like leaves on a summer stream; And here, in this scene of pleasure, I bury my sweet, dead dream. Through the cloud of her dusky tresses, Like a star shines out her face; And the form his strong arm presses, Is sylph-like in its grace. As a leaf on the bounding river Is lost in the seething sea, I know that for ever and ever My dream is lost to me. And still the viols are playing That grand old wordless rhyme; And still those two are swaying In perfect tune and time. If the great bassoons that mutter, If the clarinets that blow, Were given a voice to utter The secret things they know, Would the lists of the slain who slumber On the Danube's battle-plains The unknown hosts outnumber Who die, 'neath the "Danube's" strains Those fall where cannons rattle, 'Mid the rain of shot and shell; But these, in fiercer battle, Find death in the music's swell. With the river's roar of passion Is blended the dying groan; But here, in the halls of fashion, Hearts break and make no moan. And the music, swelling and sweeping, Like the river, knows it all; But none are counting or keeping The lists of those who fall.
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