XV

Forth from the forest wend I slowly, Of the Faun's

While in my ears yet rings the holy Further Wanderings.

Dithyramb. The noon is past,

But the sun rages. There is cast

A dumbness yet o'er earth and sky.

Down to the river then will I,

Slowly about its depths to swim,

While the stream fondles every limb

And soothes its ache. Deep I will dip,

And, blowing, raise my locks, that drip

Till the slim Hyads troop to see,

And revel, too, and play with me,

Hanging my ears with humid weed

Or mounting me as water steed.

Then, musing I will on, and so

Stray to where a silver slow

River circles through the meads,

Wherein the mooching great ox feeds,

And turns a slow eye round the sky,

Wondering if he can ever die.

And there, mayhap,‘ twill come to pass

I'll hear a sweet voice in the grass,

And yet shall mark no singer nigh,

Till, gently peering, I espy

A solemn, elfish child who sits

Unseen mid towering grass, and knits

An endless, endless daisy chain,

Crooning the while some soft refrain

Her mother sings her when she closes

Her twilit eyes.

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!

Then, crossed-legged mid the meadow-sweet, Of the Faun's

I will sink down, laugh low, and greet Converse with

Her blue, inquiring, childish eyes a Small

With mine, sharp, merry, brown, and wise, She-Child.

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?’