LAUGHTER
To-day it is of laughter I would write.
The babe that on a doting mother's knee
Tilts its first carol at a world of tears,
The schoolgirl, merry with her skipping-rope. . . .
Maybe she finds between the rise and fall
Of hempen arches, nearness to the sky
(As though she kept a feather of lost wings
To float her in the pathways of the blue).
The babe that on a doting mother's knee
Tilts its first carol at a world of tears,
The schoolgirl, merry with her skipping-rope. . . .
Maybe she finds between the rise and fall
Of hempen arches, nearness to the sky
(As though she kept a feather of lost wings
To float her in the pathways of the blue).
Pan, sprightly in his green-leaf pavisade,
Shaking the glossy twigs with mirth o' Spring,
Silenus, jovial on the rotund cask,
Because of some smart sally Bacchus made—
Bacchus with vine-leaves in his ruddy hair,
Impatient of the witchery of nymphs.
Shaking the glossy twigs with mirth o' Spring,
Silenus, jovial on the rotund cask,
Because of some smart sally Bacchus made—
Bacchus with vine-leaves in his ruddy hair,
Impatient of the witchery of nymphs.
To-day it is of laughter I would write.
The chuckle in the shallow of the streams
That rollick down the mountain, where the fern
Primly withdraws itself from foolish jest
And bends its head as though it wore a cowl,
A Capuchin of bracken! And the laugh
Of black-browed witches in the moaning pines,
Witches with apple cheeks and amber breasts,
That ride a trotting broomstick at the clouds!
And there toss, in their levity, pert words
At the serene aloofness of the stars!
The chuckle in the shallow of the streams
That rollick down the mountain, where the fern
Primly withdraws itself from foolish jest
And bends its head as though it wore a cowl,
A Capuchin of bracken! And the laugh
Of black-browed witches in the moaning pines,
Witches with apple cheeks and amber breasts,
That ride a trotting broomstick at the clouds!
And there toss, in their levity, pert words
At the serene aloofness of the stars!
