How Healthily by Edna St. Vincent Millay — Read

How healthily their feet upon the floor

Strike down! These are no spirits, but a band

Of children, surely, leaping hand in hand

Into the air in groups of three and four, / Wearing their silken rags as if they wore

Leaves only and light grasses, or a strand

Of black elusive seaweed oozing sand, / And running hard as if along a shore.

I know how lost forever, and at length

How still these lovely tossing limbs shall lie, / And the bright laughter and the panting breath;

And yet, before such beauty and such strength, / Once more, as always when the dance is high, / I am rebuked that I believe in death.