Classic Poem

No one sang thee, little fielding,
Sang thy wondrous being and birth,
Till to mute attraction yielding
I first hymned thee here on earth.

Though I never saw thee start up,
I have seen thee when thou wert
Poised as with an hinder part up—
Oh my sudden quaint upstart!

In the short grass by the fount-head
Thou art found as free from rule
As a faun, and unaccounted
As a little boy from school.

Or a baby plump and ample,
Whose exuberance was led
By Silenus' bad example
Till the bowl fell o'er his head

Of all growing things the oddest;
Only of a sudden seen
Unexpected and immodest
As above a stocking, skin!

Soft, I must entreat thee gently;
For I can but do thee wrong,
And but think inconsequently
Who for daylight pitch my song.

Suns for thee must still illume an
Arid waste beneath the sky,
Wistful, cold and thwartly human
And Augustan—even as I.

Darkness only does not flout thee
When alone thou tak'st the light,
And the silence floats about thee,
Moon-loved dewy child of night.

Thine example shows quite clearly,
That the things we think deranged
Would be most delightful merely,
Merely if the scene were changed.