Allemande left! On your right hand
Swing your partner under, stand,
Wait for the fiddle — the Devil’s own chord —
Heaven and Hell will split the reward:
Couples fall back and Lazarus fo’w’rd.
Do-si-do and face your winsome
Peace of mind for a few seconds long would
Be all I’d pray for, choose your handsome
Brief reprieve from a love gone wrong would
Be all I’d need, now promenade along.
Gentlemen, turn to the left and bow, and
Never be bereft, never covered with a shroud, and
Still stand still, stand stepping with the throng;
Face your fear, and turning from despair —
In for a penny, Ladies, in for a dollar —
The heart beats hard, beats listening to the air
And the called forever moving toward the caller.
the Devil’s own chord – The tritone, a musical interval of three whole tones, was traditionally called “the devil in music” (diabolus in musica) because it was considered extremely discordant. The tritone also appears in Hertz’s poem The Piano Tuner as “demon triads.”