Tarantella

by D. H. Lawrence

　　

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SAD as he sits on the white sea-stoneAnd the suave sea chuckles, and turns to the moon,And the moon significant smiles at the cliffs and the boulders.He sits like a shade by the flood aloneWhile I dance a tarantella on the rocks, and the croonOf my mockery mocks at him over the waves' bright shoulders.What can I do but dance alone,Dance to the sliding sea and the moon,For the moon on my breast and the air on my limbs and the foam on my feet?For surely this earnest man has noneOf the night in his soul, and none of the tuneOf the waters within him; only the world's old wisdom to bleat.I wish a wild sea-fellow would come down the glittering shingle,A soulless neckar, with winking seas in his eyesAnd falling waves in his arms, and the lost soul's kissOn his lips: I long to be soulless, I tingleTo touch the sea in the last surpriseOf fiery coldness, to be gone in a lost soul's bliss.

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