Part smith, part seaman, and part shepherd too: You scarce knew which, as, pausing with the pail Half filled with goat's milk, silently he drew An anvil forth, and reaching shoe and nail, Bared a red forearm, bringing into view Anchors and hearts in shadowy tattoo. And then he lit his fire.... But I dispense Henceforth with you, my Reader, and your horse, As being but a colorable pretence To bring an awkward hero in perforce; Since this our smith, for reasons never known, To most society preferred his own. Women declared that he'd an "Evil Eye,"-- This in a sense was true--he had but one; Men, on the other hand, alleged him shy: We sometimes say so of the friends we shun; But, wrong or right, suffices to affirm it-- The Cyclops lived a veritable hermit,-- Dwelling below the cliff, beside the sea, Caved like an ancient British Troglodyte, Milking his goat at eve, and it may be, Spearing the fish along the flats at night, Until, at last, one April evening mild, Came to the Inn a Lady and a Child. The Lady was a nullity; the Child One of those bright bewitching little creatures, Who, if she once but shyly looked and smiled, Would soften out the ruggedest of features; Fragile and slight,--a very fay for size,-- With pale town-cheeks, and "clear germander eyes." Nurses, no doubt, might name her "somewhat wild;" And pedants, possibly, pronounce her "slow;" Or corset-makers add, that for a child, She needed "cultivation;"--all I know Is that whene'er she spoke, or laughed, or romped, you Felt in each act the beauty of impromptu. The Lady was a nullity--a pale, Nerveless and pulseless quasi-invalid, Who, lest the ozone should in aught avail, Remained religiously indoors to read; So that, in wandering at her will, the Child Did, in reality, run "somewhat wild." At first but peering at the sanded floor And great shark jaw-bone in the cosy bar; Then watching idly from the dusky door, The noisy advent of a coach or car; Then stealing out to wonder at the fate Of blistered Ajax by the garden gate,-- Some old ship's figure-head--until at last, Straying with each excursion more and more, She reached the limits of the road, and passed, Plucking the pansies, downward to the shore, And so, as you, respected Reader, showed, Came to the smith's "desirable abode." There by the cave the occupant she found, Weaving a crate; and, with a gladsome cry, The dog frisked out, although the Cyclops frowned With all the terrors of his single eye; Then from a mound came running, too, the goat, Uttering her plaintive, desultory note.