The wild birds in a cloud fly up From their sweet feeding in the fruit; The droning of the bees and flies Rises gradual as a lute; Is it for fear the birds are flown, And shrills the insect-drone? Thick is the ivy over Alulvan, And crisp with summer-heat its turf; Far, far across its empty pastures Alulvan's sands are white with surf: And he himself is grey as the sea, Watching beneath an elder-tree. All night the fretful, shrill Banshee Lurks in the ivy's dark festoons, Calling for ever, o'er garden and river, Through magpie changing of the moons: "Alulvan, O, alas! Alulvan, The doom of lone Alulvan!" THE PEDLAR There came a pedlar to an evening house; Sweet Lettice, from her lattice looking down, Wondered what man he was, so curious His black hair dangled on his tattered gown: Then lifts he up his face, with glittering eyes,-- "What will you buy, sweetheart?--Here's honeycomb, And mottled pippins, and sweet mulberry pies, Comfits and peaches, snowy cherry bloom, To keep in water for to make night sweet: All that you want, sweetheart,--come, taste and eat!" Even with his sugared words, returned to her The clear remembrance of a gentle voice: "And O! my child, should ever a flatterer Tap with his wares, and promise of all joys, And vain sweet pleasures that on earth may be, Seal up your ears, sing some old happy song, Confuse his magic who is all mockery: His sweets are death." Yet, still how she doth long But just to taste, then shut the lattice tight, And hide her eyes from the delicious sight! "What must I pay?" she whispered. "Pay!" says he, "Pedlar I am who through this wood to roam, One lock of her hair is gold enough for me, For apple, peach, comfit, or honeycomb!" But from her bough a drowsy squirrel cried, "Trust him not, Lettice, trust, oh trust him not!" And many another woodland tongue beside Rose softly in the silence--"Trust him not!" Then cried the Pedlar in a bitter voice, "What, in the thicket, is this idle noise?" A late, harsh blackbird smote him with her wings, As through the glade, dark in the dim, she flew; Yet still the Pedlar his old burden sings,-- "What, pretty sweetheart, shall I show to you? Here's orange ribands, here's a string of pearls, Here's silk of buttercup and pansy glove, A pin of tortoiseshell for windy curls, A box of silver, scented sweet with clove: Come now," he says, with dim and lifted face, "I pass not often such a lonely place." "Pluck not a hair!" a hidden rabbit cried, "With but one hair he'll steal thy heart away, Then only sorrow shall thy lattice hide: Go in! all honest pedlars come by day." There was dead silence in the drowsy wood; "Here's syrup for to lull sweet maids to sleep; And bells for dreams, and fairy wine and food All day thy heart in happiness to keep";-- And now she takes the scissors on her thumb,-- "O, then, no more unto my lattice come!"