Little Girl. Three red, red, roses—
One each for father and mother, and one,
The reddest of all, for her baby son.
None for wee Amoret? Oh, none! for she
Some day, when she grows up, a red rose will be!
Of the Faun's Converse with a Small She-Child.
Then, crossed-legged mid the meadow-sweet,
I will sink down, laugh low, and greet
Her blue, inquiring, childish eyes
With mine, sharp, merry, brown, and wise,
And tell her tales—of Jack who slew
Ten giants; or Mirabel who flew
On a white owl to find the Prince
And give to him the Golden Quince
Would change him from a roaring bull
To a youth blithe and beautiful;
Or tales of the Goblin and the Sloth,
Who watched the moon and swore an oath
To find out what she was: how these
Explored her mines and found her—cheese.
Thus will I sit and both amuse
Until I rise and beg excuse:
Off 'to El Raschid in Assyria'
Or 'the Grand-Duchess of Illyria,'
Or 'to ask the maiden moon
Why one only of her shoon
She left us last night in the sky,
And not her silver self, and why
She always climbs the self-same track?
Lets no one ever see her back?'
XVI
But neither to the moon go I
Or to the river gliding by,
But to the woods, therein to move
Among the quiet glades I love,
Desiring nought but aye to see
The beech, ash, oak, and chestnut tree....
Till I a nymph meet who persuades
Me to the broadest of the glades,
Around whose smooth and sunken space
The far woods lie. For in this place,
Deserted but for a mid-grove
Of maiden trees, bower of the dove,
Pan plays, and should the sylvans chance,
Nymphs, fauns, and sylvans, join in dance.
XVII
Of the Immortal Dance.
On either hand the slender trees
Bow to the caressing breeze,
And shake their shocks of silver light
Against skies marbled greenish-white,
Save where, within a rent of blue,
The tilted slip of moon glints through,
Glittering upon us as we dance
With a soft extravagance
Of limbs as blonde as autumn boughs,
And gold locks floating from moony brows.
While anguished Pan the pipes doth blow
Fond and tremulous and low,
And anon the timbrel shakes.
—It is his sudden heart that breaks
For springs before the world grew old,
Rich vales, and hill-tops fiery cold!—
He watches the scarce moving skies,
The trees, the glittering revelries,
The moon, the dancers lemon-clad:
The world fantastical and sad.
The high-flung timbrels pulse and knock;
We follow in a dancing flock,
Touching each other's finger-tips,
While from between our parted lips
The solemn melodies repeat
The rhythm of our shaken feet.
Then faster! and the round we trace,
Hair flowing from elated face,
Eyes lit, breast bare, with lifted knees,
And hands that toss as toss the trees....
And slow again ... with cumulate motion,
As the long draw and plunge of ocean
Bursting in a cloud of spray
Up a white, deserted bay
Of the sun-circled green Bermooths,
Whose blistering sands the cool foam soothes....
Next the bewildering pipes may sing
Some simple melody of spring,
Whose cadences remember yet
Sadly lost springs that we forget.
To which as dances April rain
On a still pool where leans no stain,
Save of the cloud's pure splendour spread
Gloriously overhead,
Our fast-flickering feet shall twinkle,
And our golden anklets tinkle,
While fair arms in aery sleeves
Shiver as the poplar's leaves.