Page:Songs from Vagabondia (1897).djvu/28

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THE FAUN. A FRAGMENT.

I will go out to grass with that old King,For I am weary of clothes and cooks.I long to lie along the banks of brooks,And watch the boughs above me sway and swing.Come, I will pluck off custom’s livery,Nor longer be a lackey to old Time.Time shall serve me, and at my feet shall flingThe spoil of listless minutes. I shall climbThe wild trees for my food, and runThrough dale and upland as a fox runs free,Laugh for cool joy and sleep i’ the warm sun,And men will call me mad, like that old King.
For I am woodland-natured, and have madeDryads my bedfellows,And I have playedWith the sleek Naiads in the splash of poolsAnd made a mock of gowned and trousered fools.Helen, none knowsBetter than thou how like a Faun I strayed.And I am half Faun now, and my heart goesOut to the forest and the crack of twigs,The drip of wet leaves and the low soft laughterOf brooks that chuckle o’er old mossy jestsAnd say them over to themselves, the nestsOf squirrels and the holes the chipmunk digs,Where through the branches the slant raysDapple with sunlight the leaf-matted ground,And the wind comes with blown vesture rustling after,And through the woven lattice of crisp soundA bird’s song lightens like a maiden’s face.
O wildwood Helen, let them strive and fret,Those goggled men with their dissecting-knives!

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