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Poetry · Poem

Gratiana Dancing

Richard LovelaceSeventeenth-century EnglishPoem
SOURCE TEXT · English original
SHE beat the happy pavèment—
By such a star made firmament,
Which now no more the roof envìes!
But swells up high, with Atlas even,
Bearing the brighter nobler heaven,
And, in her, all the deities.

Each step trod out a Lover’s thought,
And the ambitious hopes he brought
Chain’d to her brave feet with such arts,
Such sweet command and gentle awe,
As, when she ceased, we sighing saw
The floor lay paved with broken hearts.
Cultural reading

Reading the poem

The dancer's steps raise the floor she treads into a firmament bearing her like a heaven, and each step both binds her watchers' hopes and, when she stops, leaves the floor paved with broken hearts.

Language notes

Text and edition

The supplied text opens with "SHE beat the happy pavèment", a pronoun whose antecedent never appears anywhere in the given stanzas, showing that preceding stanzas are not included and that this is an anthology extract.