Then Saturn fiercely thus:--"What joy have I In tender babes, that have devour'd mine own, Whenever to the light I heard them cry, Till foolish Rhea cheated me with stone? Whereon, till now, is my great hunger shown, In monstrous dint of my enormous tooth; And--but the peopled world is too full grown For hunger's edge--I would consume all youth At one great meal, without delay or ruth!" XLIV. "For I am well nigh crazed and wild to hear How boastful fathers taunt me with their breed, Saying, 'We shall not die nor disappear, But, in these other selves, ourselves succeed Ev'n as ripe flowers pass into their seed Only to be renew'd from prime to prime,' All of which boastings I am forced to read, Besides a thousand challenges to Time, Which bragging lovers have compiled in rhyme." XLV. "Wherefore, when they are sweetly met o' nights, There will I steal and with my hurried hand Startle them suddenly from their delights Before the next encounter hath been plann'd, Ravishing hours in little minutes spann'd; But when they say farewell, and grieve apart, Then like a leaden statue I will stand, Meanwhile their many tears encrust my dart, And with a ragged edge cut heart from heart." XLVI. Then next a merry Woodsman, clad in green, Step vanward from his mates, that idly stood Each at his proper ease, as they had been Nursed in the liberty of old Sherwood, And wore the livery of Robin Hood, Who wont in forest shades to dine and sup,-- So came this chief right frankly, and made good His haunch against his axe, and thus spoke up, Doffing his cap, which was an acorn's cup:-- XLVII. "We be small foresters and gay, who tend On trees, and all their furniture of green, Training the young boughs airily to bend, And show blue snatches of the sky between;-- Or knit more close intricacies, to screen Birds' crafty dwellings, as may hide them best, But most the timid blackbird's--she that, seen, Will bear black poisonous berries to her nest, Lest man should cage the darlings of her breast." XLVIII. "We bend each tree in proper attitude, And founting willows train in silvery falls; We frame all shady roofs and arches rude, And verdant aisles leading to Dryads' halls, Or deep recesses where the Echo calls;-- We shape all plumy trees against the sky, And carve tall elms' Corinthian capitals,-- When sometimes, as our tiny hatchets ply, Men say, the tapping woodpecker is nigh." XLIX. "Sometimes we scoop the squirrel's hollow cell, And sometimes carve quaint letters on trees' rind, That haply some lone musing wight may spell Dainty Aminta,--Gentle Rosalind,-- Or chastest Laura,--sweetly call'd to mind In sylvan solitudes, ere he lies down;-- And sometimes we enrich gray stems with twined And vagrant ivy,--or rich moss, whose brown Burns into gold as the warm sun goes down." L.