PHONOGRAPH — TANGO
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.