{
 "id": "oscar-wilde/the-harlots-house",
 "title": "The Harlot’s House",
 "ordinal": null,
 "subtitle": null,
 "poet": "Oscar Wilde",
 "poet_slug": "oscar-wilde",
 "language": "en",
 "book": "Poetry",
 "book_slug": null,
 "book_kind": "compilation",
 "sequence": null,
 "container": null,
 "epigraph": null,
 "first_published": {
  "year": 1885,
  "venue": "The Dramatic Review 1, no. 11 (11 April 1885)",
  "note": "Stuart Mason, A Bibliography of the Poems of Oscar Wilde (London, 1907), is the authority for this printing.",
  "uncertain": false,
  "sources": [
   "https://archive.org/details/abibliographypo00wildgoog"
  ]
 },
 "source": {
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   "https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/1338",
   "https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Lotus_Leaves",
   "https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Wasted_Days_(from_a_Picture_Painted_by_Miss_V._T.)",
   "https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/102953450",
   "https://archive.org/details/ravennarecitedin00wildrich",
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   "https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/006061074",
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   "https://archive.org/details/cu31924013571082",
   "https://newspapers.bc.edu/?a=d&d=pilot18770721-01.2.24"
  ],
  "rights": "public domain (SE dedication; underlying text pre-1931)"
 },
 "verification": {
  "level": "structural-only",
  "last_checked": "2026-08-12"
 },
 "stats": {
  "n_lines": 36,
  "n_stanzas": 12,
  "n_parts": 0,
  "longest_line_chars": 40,
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 "stanzas": [
  [
   {
    "text": "We caught the tread of dancing feet,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "We loitered down the moonlit street,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And stopped beneath the harlot’s house.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Inside, above the din and fray,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "We heard the loud musicians play",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The “Treues Liebes Herz” of Strauss.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Like strange mechanical grotesques,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Making fantastic arabesques,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The shadows raced across the blind.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "We watched the ghostly dancers spin",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "To sound of horn and violin,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Like black leaves wheeling in the wind.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Like wire-pulled automatons,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Slim silhouetted skeletons",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Went sidling through the slow quadrille,",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Then took each other by the hand,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And danced a stately saraband;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Their laughter echoed thin and shrill.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Sometimes a clockwork puppet pressed",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "A phantom lover to her breast,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Sometimes they seemed to try to sing.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Sometimes a horrible marionette",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Came out, and smoked its cigarette",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Upon the steps like a live thing.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Then, turning to my love, I said,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "“The dead are dancing with the dead,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The dust is whirling with the dust.”",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "But she⁠—she heard the violin,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And left my side, and entered in:",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Love passed into the house of lust.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Then suddenly the tune went false,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The dancers wearied of the waltz,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The shadows ceased to wheel and whirl.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "And down the long and silent street,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The dawn, with silver-sandalled feet,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Crept like a frightened girl.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ]
 ]
}