II

This is something that befell

When my pipe was drawing well —

Something, rather, that I heard

As the fluting of a bird.

Daphne, come and live with me

In a Pagan greenery.

Life will then be naught but play,

One long Pagan holiday.

We will play at hide and seek

In the alders by the creek;

Sport amid the cascade's smother.

Splashing water at each other;—

Every moment pleasure wooing,

Every moment something doing.

If we talk, we'll talk of Love:

All its arguments we'll prove.

Such a mental rest you'll find.

Leave your intellect behind.

Night will come, ( for come it will,

‘ Spite the fluting on the hill,)

And we'll pitch a cozy camp

Where it is n't quite so damp.

While you dry your hair and laze

By the campfire's violet blaze,

I will rob a balsam tree

To construct a house for thee.

What so dear as to be wooed

In a sylvan solitude?

What so sweet as Pagan vows

Whispered in a house of boughs?

Pagan love's without alloy.

Pagan kisses never cloy.

Arms that cling in Pagan fashion

Never tire. A Pagan passion

Is the only kind I know

That outlives a winter's snow.

Daphne, Daphne, let us fly!

You're a Pagan — so am I.

So the fluting on the hill

Passed and died, and all was still.

So the Pagan Pickings died,

And I laid the pipe aside.