THE ROOM OF MIRRORS
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saw a room where many feet were dancing.The ceiling and the wall were mirrors glancingBoth flames of candles and the heaven's light,Though windows there were none for air or flight.The room was in a form polygonalReached by a little door and narrow hall.One could behold them enter for the dance,And waken as it were out of a trance,And either singly or with some one whirl:The old, the young, full livers, boy and girl.And every panel of the room was justA mirrored door through which a hand was thrustHere, there, around the room, a soul to seizeWhereat a scream would rise, but no surceaseOf music or of dancing, save by himDrawn through the mirrored panel to the dimAnd unknown space behind the flashing mirrors,And by his partner struck through by the terrorsOf sudden loss. And looking I could seeThat scarcely any dancer here could freeHis eyes from off the mirrors, but would gazeUpon himself or others, till a crazeShone in his eyes thus to anticipateThe hand that took each dancer soon or late.Some analyzed themselves, some only glanced,Some stared and paled and then more madly danced.One dancer only never looked at all.He seemed soul captured by the carnival.There were so many dancers there he loved,He was so greatly by the music moved,He had no time to study his own faceThere in the mirrors as from place to placeHe quickly danced. Until I saw at lastThis dancer by the whirling dancers castFace full against a mirrored panel whereBefore he could look at himself or stareHe plunged through to the other side--and quick,As water closes when you lift the stick,The mirrored panel swung in place and leftNo trace of him, as 'twere a magic trick.But all his partners thus so soon bereftWent dancing to the music as before.But I saw faces in that mirrored doorAnatomizing their forced smiles and watchingTheir faces over shoulders, even matchingTheir terror with each other's to repressA growing fear in seeing it was lessThan some one else's, or to ease despairBy looking in a face who did not care,While watching for the hand that through some doorCaught a poor dancer from the dancing floorWith every time-beat of the orchestra.What is this room of mirrors? Who can say?
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