Old dances are simplified of their yearning, bleached by Time.
Yet from one black disc
we tasted again the bite of crude Spanish passion.
... He had got into her courtyard.
She was alone that night.
Through the black night-rain, he sang to her window bars:
_Love me, love--ah, love me!_
_If you will not, I can follow_
_Into the highest of mountains;_
_And there, in the wooden cabin,_
_I will strangle you for your lover._
--That was but rustling of dripping plants in the dark.
More tightly under his cloak, he clasped his guitar.
_Love, ah-h! love me, love me!_
_If you will do this, I can buy_
_A fringed silk scarf of yellow,_
_A high comb carved of tortoise;_
_Then we will dance in the Plaza._
She was alone that night.
He had broken into her courtyard.
Above the gurgling gutters
he heard--
surely--
a door unchained?
The passage was black; but he risked it--
death in the darkness--
or her hot arms--(_love--love me ah-h-h!_)
"A good old tune," she murmured
--and I found we were dancing.