Love Of The Woodland.

("Orphe au bois du Caystre.")     [Bk. I. ii.]     Orpheus, through the hellward wood     Hurried, ere the eve-star glowed,     For the fauns' lugubrious hoots     Followed, hollow, from crookd roots;     Aeschylus, where Aetna smoked,     Gods of Sicily evoked     With the flute, till sulphur taint     Dulled and lulled the echoes faint;     Pliny, soon his style mislaid,     Dogged Miletus' merry maid,     As she showed eburnean limbs     All-multiplied by brooklet brims;     Plautus, see! like Plutus, hold     Bosomfuls of orchard-gold,     Learns he why that mystic core     Was sweet Venus' meed of yore?     Dante dreamt (while spirits pass     As in wizard's jetty glass)     Each black-bossed Briarian trunk     Waved live arms like furies drunk;     Winsome Will, 'neath Windsor Oak,     Eyed each elf that cracked a joke     At poor panting grease-hart fast -     Obese, roguish Jack harassed;     At Versailles, Molire did court     Cues from Pan (in heron port,     Half in ooze, half treeward raised),     "Words so witty, that Boileau's 'mazed!"     Foliage! fondly you attract!     Dian's faith I keep intact,     And declare that thy dryads dance     Still, and will, in thy green expanse!