Page:Poems Rossetti.djvu/73

Then Meggan mused within herself:
 "Better be first with him,
Than dwell where fairer Margaret sits,
 Who shines my brightness dim,
For ever second where she sits,
 However fair I be:
I will be lady of his love,
 And he shall worship me;
I will be lady of his herds
 And stoop to his degree,
At home where kids and fatlings grow."

Sped a shepherd from the height
 Headlong down to look,
(White lambs followed, lured by love
 Of their shepherd's crook):
He turned neither east nor west,
 Neither north nor south,
But knelt right down to May, for love
 Of her sweet-singing mouth;
Forgot his flocks, his panting flocks
 In parching hill-side drouth;
Forgot himself for weal or woe.

Trilled her song and swelled her song
 With maiden coy caprice
In a labyrinth of throbs,
 Pauses, cadences;
Clear-noted as a dropping brook,
 Soft-noted like the bees,