With nice observance of the rules
And precepts of the pastoral schools,
A shepherdess, as fair as pure, ,
Beneath a hedgerow sat demure.
With conscious grace before her feet
Her swain lay faithfully supine,
Essaying neatly to combine
Positions patently discreet
With rustic notions of design.
Hedge-high the wild small roses grew
To kiss the breeze, and yet there blew
In Phoebe’s cheek a wilder rose
That Corin watered with his woes.
Of sighs and chosen words he twined
A cunning thread to trap and bind
The bird that sang in Phoebe’s heart;
With careful hand he spread the lime,
The tuneful tears, the weary rhyme,
Of tattered, patched Italian art,
And tirelessly reset the snare
Of piping music’s gusty ware.
Yet loving he observed the rules
Laid down for use in pastoral schools,
And all advantages eschewed
Of Phoebe’s solitude.
And still in spire of poetry
And this too subtle courtesy,
She tarried coldly continent;
No signal of surrender flamed,
Though orthodoxy clearly claimed
A maidenly consent.
There stood in shade of friendly grass
A jug with sweet cool wine a-brim,
And, weary of his Lover’s Mass,
Tall Corin took the sacrament
A readier chalice offered him.
The honest wine first cooled his head,
And led back laughter, that had fled
The solemn ritual of love.
And in a little while
The countryside, that once had been
A placidly enamelled screen,
He saw as mile on waving mile
Of grass that grew more richly green,
Of flowers, and jolly rotund hills,
Of deeply chuckling meaclow-rills,
And marching roads; while far above
The portly clouds that statelily
Had stalked across the level sky,
Were tripped and tumbled by the wind
In coltish merriment.
Till, peering through the wine, half-blind
And swimming up in slow ascent,
The bottom of the honest jug
Appears like Truth, ail soft and snug
And pinkly naked in her well.
Then Corin laughs. His glances dwell
Once more on Phoebe, and he sees
The wild-rose flaming in her cheek.
And now no more on pilgrim knees
He pleads a docile love and meek,
But boldly clips her in his arms
And quiets her modest faint alarms
With kiss on eager kiss that sips
The rose-red nectar of her lips.
And now his love grows kind to feel
The soft white arms that slowly steal
About his neck. Now Phcebe’s kisses,
Each one Love’s virgin young Ulysses,
In turn seek rest on Conn’s lips. . . .
A vagrant cloud for mockery
Slid solemnly athwart the sun,
And in the leaves, half-breathlessly,
A tiny breeze hid shivering.
Hedge-high the wild small roses flare,
Whose petals, gravely curtseying,
Blow softly clown on Phoebe’s hair. . .
And still the bottom of the jug,
With innocent, unwinking eye,
Stared nakedly into the sky.
(Eric Linklater)
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Based on Topics: Love Poems, Flowers Poems, Art Poems, Birds Poems, Truth Poems, Education Poems, Literature Poems, Hair Poems, Wine Poems, Kiss Poems, Laughter PoemsBased on Keywords: clips, observance, advantages, readier, maidenly, conn, enamelled, phoebe, placidly, wild-rose, quiets