Page:Shepheards Calendar-Crane 1898.djvu/49

 WIL. Let be, as may be, that is past;

That is to come, let be forecast:

Now tell us what thou hast seen.

THO. It was upon a holiday,

When shepheards’ grooms have leave to play,

I cast to go a shooting;

Long wand’ring up and down the land,

With bow and bolts in either hand,

For birds in bushes tooting,

At length within the ivy tod,

(There shrouded was the little god,)

I heard a busy bustling;

I bent my bolt against the bush,

List’ning if any thing did rush,

But then heard no more rustling.

Then, peeping close into the thick,

Might see the moving of some quick,

Whose shape appeared not;

But were it faery, fiend, or snake,

My courage yearn’d it to awake,

And manfully thereat shot:

With that sprang forth a naked swain;

With spotted wings like peacock’s train,

And laughing lope to a tree;

His gilden quiver at his back,

And silver bow, which was but slack,

Which lightly he bent at me:

That seeing, I levell’d again,

And shot at him with might and main,

As thick as it had hailed.

So long I shot, that all was spent;

Then pumie stones I hast’ly hent,

And threw; but nought availed:

He was so wimble and so wight,

From bough to bough he leaped light,

And oft the pumies latched:

Therewith afraid I ran away;

But he, that erst seem’d but to play,