Collected Poems 1901-1918 in Two Volumes - Volume II. | Page 4

may be,
Seal up your ears, sing some old happy song,

Confuse his magic who is all mockery:
His sweets are death." Yet,
still how she doth long
But just to taste, then shut the lattice tight,

And hide her eyes from the delicious sight!
"What must I pay?" she whispered. "Pay!" says he,
"Pedlar I am who
through this wood to roam,
One lock of her hair is gold enough for
me,
For apple, peach, comfit, or honeycomb!"
But from her bough
a drowsy squirrel cried,
"Trust him not, Lettice, trust, oh trust him
not!"
And many another woodland tongue beside
Rose softly in the
silence--"Trust him not!"
Then cried the Pedlar in a bitter voice,

"What, in the thicket, is this idle noise?"
A late, harsh blackbird smote him with her wings,
As through the
glade, dark in the dim, she flew;
Yet still the Pedlar his old burden
sings,--
"What, pretty sweetheart, shall I show to you?
Here's
orange ribands, here's a string of pearls,
Here's silk of buttercup and
pansy glove,
A pin of tortoiseshell for windy curls,
A box of silver,
scented sweet with clove:
Come now," he says, with dim and lifted
face,
"I pass not often such a lonely place."
"Pluck not a hair!" a hidden rabbit cried,
"With but one hair he'll steal
thy heart away,
Then only sorrow shall thy lattice hide:
Go in! all
honest pedlars come by day."
There was dead silence in the drowsy
wood;
"Here's syrup for to lull sweet maids to sleep;
And bells for
dreams, and fairy wine and food
All day thy heart in happiness to
keep";--
And now she takes the scissors on her thumb,--
"O, then,
no more unto my lattice come!"
Sad is the sound of weeping in the wood!
Now only night is where
the Pedlar was;

And bleak as frost upon a quickling bud
His magic

steals in darkness, O alas!
Why all the summer doth sweet Lettice
pine?
And, ere the wheat is ripe, why lies her gold
Hid 'neath fresh
new-plucked sprigs of eglantine?
Why all the morning hath the
cuckoo tolled,
Sad, to and fro, in green and secret ways,
With
solemn bells the burden of his days?
And, in the market-place, what man is this
Who wears a loop of gold
upon his breast,
Stuck heartwise; and whose glassy flatteries
Take
all the townsfolk ere they go to rest
Who come to buy and gossip?
Doth his eye
Remember a face lovely in a wood?
O people! hasten,
hasten, do not buy
His woeful wares; the bird of grief doth brood

There where his heart should be; and far away
There mourns long
sorrowfulness this happy day.
THE OGRE
'Tis moonlight on Trebarwith Vale,
And moonlight on an Ogre keen,

Who, prowling hungry through the dale,
A lone cottage hath seen.
Small, with thin smoke ascending up,
Three casements and a door--

The Ogre eager is to tap,
And here seems dainty store.
Sweet as a larder to a mouse,
So to him staring down,
Seemed the
small-windowed moonlit house,
With jasmine overgrown.
He snorted, as the billows snort
In darkness of the night;
Betwixt
his lean locks tawny-swart,
He glowered on the sight.
Into the garden sweet with peas
He put his wooden shoe,
And
bending back the apple trees
Crept covetously through;
Then, stooping, with a gloating eye
Stared through the lattice small,

And spied two children which did lie
Asleep, against the wall.
Into their dreams no shadow fell
Of his disastrous thumb
Groping

discreet, and gradual,
Across the quiet room.
But scarce his nail had scraped the cot
Wherein these children lay,

As if his malice were forgot,
It suddenly did stay.
For faintly in the ingle-nook
He heard a cradle-song,
That rose into
his thoughts and woke
Terror them among.
For she who in the kitchen sat
Darning by the fire,
Guileless of
what he would be at,
Sang sweet as wind or wire:--
"Lullay, thou little tiny child,
By-by, lullay, lullie;
Jesu in glory,
meek and mild,
This night remember thee!
"Fiend, witch, and goblin, foul and wild,
He deems them smoke to be;

Lullay, thou little tiny child,
By-by, lullay, lullie!"
The Ogre lifted up his eyes
Into the moon's pale ray,
And gazed
upon her leopard-wise,
Cruel and clear as day;
He snarled in gluttony and fear--
"The wind blows dismally--
Jesu
in storm my lambs be near,
By-by, lullay, lullie!"
And like a ravenous beast which sees
The hunter's icy eye,
So did
this wretch in wrath confess
Sweet Jesu's mastery.
Lightly he drew his greedy thumb
From out that casement pale,

And strode, enormous, swiftly home,
Whinnying down the dale.
DAME HICKORY
"Dame Hickory, Dame Hickory,
Here's sticks for your fire,

Furze-twigs, and oak-twigs,
And beech-twigs, and briar!"
But when
old Dame Hickory came for to see,
She found 'twas the voice of the
False Faerie.

"Dame Hickory, Dame Hickory,
Here's meat for your broth,

Goose-flesh, and hare's flesh,
And pig's trotters both!"
But when
old Dame Hickory came for to see,
She found 'twas the voice of the
False Faerie.
"Dame Hickory, Dame Hickory,
Here's a wolf at your door,
His teeth grinning white,
And his tongue
wagging sore!"
"Nay!" said Dame Hickory, "ye False Faerie!
But a
wolf 'twas indeed, and famished was he.
"Dame Hickory, Dame Hickory,
Here's buds for your tomb,

Bramble, and lavender,
And rosemary bloom!"
"Wh-s-st!" said Dame Hickory, "ye False
Faerie,
Ye cry like a wolf, ye