Oscar Wilde The Harlots House ( Vincent Price)

We caught the tread of dancing feet, We loitered down the moonlit street, And stopped beneath the harlot s house. Inside, above the din and fray, We heard the loud musicians play The Treues Liebes Herz of Strauss. Like strange mechanical grotesques, Making fantastic arabesques, The shadows raced across the blind. We watched the ghostly dancers spin, To sound of horn and violin, Like black leaves wheeling in the wind. Like wirepulled automatons, Slim silhouetted skeletons Went sidling through the slow quadrille. Then took each other by the hand, And danced a stately saraband; Their laughter echoed thin and shrill. Sometimes a clockwork puppet pressed A phantom lover to her breast, Sometimes they seemed to try and sing. Sometimes a horrible marionette Came out and smoked its cigarette Upon the steps like a live thing. Then turning to my love I said, The dead are dancing with the dead, The dust is w