Others import yet nobler arts from France,
Teach kings to fiddle, and make senates dance.

Others import yet nobler arts from France,
Teach kings to fiddle, and make senates dance.

Dancing in the chequer'd shade.

Dancing in the chequer'd shade.

Those who danced were thought to be quite insane by those who could not hear the music.

Those who danced were thought to be quite insane by those who could not hear the music.

Come, knit hands, and beat the ground
In a light fantastic round.

Come, knit hands, and beat the ground
In a light fantastic round.

My dancing days are done.

My dancing days are done.

Those who hear not the music think the dancers mad

Those who hear not the music think the dancers mad

The truest expression of a people is in its dances and its music.
Bodies never lie.

The truest expression of a people is in its dances and its music.
Bodies never lie.

What! the girl I adore by another embraced?
What! the balm of her breath shall another man taste?
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What! the girl I adore by another embraced?
What! the balm of her breath shall another man taste?
What! pressed in the dance by another's man's knee?
What! panting recline on another than me?
Sir, she's yours; you have pressed from the grape its fine blue,
From the rosebud you've shaken the tremulous dew;
What you've touched you may take. Pretty waltzer--adieu!

He who esteems the Virginia reel
A bait to draw saints from their spiritual weal,
And regards read more

He who esteems the Virginia reel
A bait to draw saints from their spiritual weal,
And regards the quadrille as a far greater knavery
Than crushing His African children with slavery,
Since all who take part in a waltz or cotillon
Are mounted for hell on the devil's own pillion,
Who, as every true orthodox Christian well knows,
Approaches the heart through the door of the toes.