Songs of Childhood | Page 8

he goes:
Yet wavers not one rose.
The wild birds in a cloud fly up
From their sweet feeding in the fruit;

The droning of the bees and flies
Rises gradual as a lute;
Is it for
fear the birds are flown,
And shrills the insect-drone?
Thick is the ivy o'er Alulvan,
And crisp with summer-heat its turf;


Far, far across its empty pastures
Alulvan's sands are white with surf:

And he himself is grey as sea,
Watching beneath an elder-tree.
All night the fretful, shrill Banshee
Lurks in the chambers' dark
festoons,
Calling for ever, o'er garden and river,
Through magpie
changing of the moons:
'Alulvan, O, alas! Alulvan,
The doom of
lone Alulvan!'
THE PEDLAR
There came a Pedlar to an evening house;
Sweet Lettice, from her
lattice looking down,
Wondered what man he was, so curious
His
black hair dangled on his tattered gown:
Then lifts he up his face,
with glittering eyes,--
'What will you buy, sweetheart?--Here's
honeycomb,
And mottled pippins, and sweet mulberry pies,

Comfits and peaches, snowy cherry bloom,
To keep in water for to
make night sweet:
All that you want, sweetheart,--come, taste and
eat!'
Ev'n with his sugared words, returned to her
The clear remembrance
of a gentle voice:--
'And O! my child, should ever a flatterer
Tap
with his wares, and promise of all joys
And vain sweet pleasures that
on earth 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 do roam,
One lock of 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!'
O sad the sound of weeping in the wood!
Now only night is where
the Pedlar was;
And bleak as frost upon a too-sweet 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-pluckt sprigs of eglantine?
Why all the morning hath the cuckoo
tolled,
Sad to and fro in green and secret ways,
With lonely 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 woful wares; the bird of grief doth brood

There where his heart should be; and far away
Dew lies on
grave-flowers this selfsame day!
THE GREY WOLF

'A fagot, a fagot, go fetch for the fire, son!'
'O, Mother, the wolf looks
in at the door!'
'Cry Shoo! now, cry Shoo! thou fierce grey wolf fly,
now; Haste thee away, he will fright thee no more.'
'I ran, O, I ran, but the grey wolf ran faster,
O, Mother, I cry in the air
at thy door,
Cry Shoo! now, cry Shoo! but his fangs were so cruel,

Thy son (save his hatchet) thou'lt never see more.'
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 sup,
And here seems dainty store.
Sweet as a larder to a mouse,
So to him staring down,
Seemed the
sweet-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 an impious 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,