The dancer slows her frantic pace    In pain and desperation,    Her aching limbs and downcast face    Aglow with perspiration       Stiff as wire, her lungs on fire,    With just the briefest pause --    The flooding through her memory,    The echoes of old applause.       She limps across the floor    And closes her bedroom door...       The writer stare with glassy eyes --    Defies the empty page    His beard is white, his face is lined    And streaked with tears of rage.       Thirty years ago, how the words would flow    With passion and precision,    But now his mind is dark and dulled    By sickness and indecision       And he stares out the kitchen door    Where the sun will rise no more...       Some are born to move the world --    To live their fantasies    But most of us just dream about    The things we'd like to be       Sadder still to watch it die    Than never to have known it    For you -- the blind who once could see --    The bell tolls for the...