The Triumph of Music, and Other Lyrics. Cawein Madison Julius

MONASTERY CROFT

1

      Big-stomached, like friars

      Who ogle a nun,

      Quaff deep to their bellies' desires

      From the old abbey's tun,

      Grapes fatten with fires

      Warm-filtered from moon and from sun.

2

      As a novice who muses, —

      Lips a rosary tell,

      While her thoughts are – a love she refuses?

      – Nay! mourns as not well:

      The ripe apple looses

      Its holding to rot where it fell.

      THE DRYAD

      I have seen her limpid eyes

      Large with gradual laughter rise

      Through wild-roses' nettles,

      Like twin blossoms grow and stare,

      Then a hating, envious air

      Whisked them into petals.

      I have seen her hardy cheek

      Like a molten coral leak

      Through the leafage shaded

      Of thick Chickasaws, and then,

      When I made more sure, again

      To a red plum faded.

      I have found her racy lips,

      And her graceful finger-tips,

      But a haw and berry;

      Glimmers of her there and here,

      Just, forsooth, enough to cheer

      And to make me merry.

      Often on the ferny rocks

      Dazzling rimples of loose locks

      At me she hath shaken,

      And I've followed – 'twas in vain —

      They had trickled into rain

      Sun-lit on the braken.

      Once her full limbs flashed on me,

      Naked where some royal tree

      Powdered all the spaces

      With wan sunlight and quaint shade,

      Such a haunt romance hath made

      For haunched satyr-races.

      There, I wot, hid amorous Pan,

      For a sudden pleading ran

      Through the maze of myrtle,

      Whiles a rapid violence tossed

      All its flowerage, – 'twas the lost

      Cooings of a turtle.

      "THE SWEET O' THE YEAR."

I

      How can I help from laughing while