So a little past sixteen
Sadie disappeared
"On the streets—that's where she'll end,"
Said each reassuring friend
To the little crooked mother
Brooding on a fate she feared.
"Sadie always was that mean!"
Grumbled Isidore, the brother,
Plucking at his silky beard . . .
II
Out from the wings, half-shy, as half-afraid,
Timidly poised as if for startled flight,
Fawn-like she steps, and round her hesitant feet
Lurks the charmed circle of the calcium light.
A moment thus, as by her fears delayed,
She hearkens—dryad —to the sensuous beat
Of savage rhythms, then half-emboldened sways
A little from the hips, and then more bold,
No longer she delays—
Maenad—but with fierce glee and sensual glance
Lithe, amorous, ecstatic, uncontrolled—
Leaps to the footlights in tempestuous dance.
And they who sit within the darkened hall
Feast quick insatiate eyes and smite their hands
When breathless, brazen, palpitant she stands
[19]
