| |
| PUFFED up with luring to her knees | |
| The rabbits from the blackberries, | |
| Quaint little satyrs, and shy and mute, | |
| That limped reluctant to the flute, | |
| She needs must seek the forest’s womb | 5 |
| And pipe up tigers from green gloom. | |
| |
| Grouped round the dreaming oaten quill | |
| Those sumptuous savages were still, | |
| Rich spectral beasts that feared to stir, | |
| And haughty and wistful gazed on her, | 10 |
| And swayed their sleepy masks in time | |
| And growled a drowsy under-rhyme. | |
| |
| Tune done, that agile fancy stopped, | |
| The lingering notes in mid-air dropped; | |
| The flute stole from her parted kiss, | 15 |
| Her cheeks for sorcery burned with bliss. | |
| Then grew a deadly muttering there; | |
| And sudden yellow eyes aglare | |
| Blazed furious over wrinkled lips | |
| And teeth on her. Her finger-tips | 20 |
| Trembled a little as they woke | |
| The second tune beneath the oak, | |
| A lilt that charmed and lulled to mute | |
| The uneasy soul within the brute. | |
| |
| And all that warbling ecstasy | 25 |
| Was winged with terror, and daintily | |
| Ceased on the wild and tragic face | |
| And desperate huddle of her grace: | |
| For with the hush began to gride | |
| Their sullen, soulless, evil-eyed, | 30 |
| Intolerable rage, blown hot | |
| Upon her. The third tune was caught | |
| With trouble from unuttered air: | |
| And still as autumn they sat there. | |
| |
| The breathless seventh tune died out | 35 |
| Like withered laughter: all about | |
| The frantic silence ran a race. | |
| She stirred, she moaned, she crawled a space. | |
| There leaped a vast and thunderous roar; | |
| A huge heart-shaking tumult tore | 40 |
| About the oak. Filing away, | |
| They trod the stained flute where it lay. | |
| |
