Four Dances from Facade: Country Dance

That hobnailed goblin
The bob-tailed Hob
Said, «It is time I began to rob.»
For strawberries bob
Hob-nob with the pearls
Of cream
(like the curls of the dairy girls)
And flushed with the heat and
Fruitish ripe
Are the gowns of the maids who
Dance to the pipe
Chase a maid?
She’s afraid!
«Go gather a bob-cherry kiss from a tree
But don’t, I prithee, come
Bothering me!»
She said —
As she fled
The snouted satyrs drink clouted
Cream
'Neath the chestnut-trees is thick as
A dream;
So I went
And leant
Where none but the doltish coltish wind
Nuzzled my hand for what could find
As I neighed
I said
«Don't touch me, sir
Don’t touch me, I say
You’ll tumble my strawberries
Into the hay
Those snow-mounds of silver that
Bee, the spring
Has sucked his sweetness from
I will bring
With fair-haired plants and with
Apples chill
For the great god Pan’s high altar
…I'll spill
Not one!»
So, in fun
We rolled on the grass and began to
Run
Chasing that gaudy satyr the Sun;
Over the haycocks, away we ran
Crying, «Here be berries as
Sunburnt as Pan!»
But Silenus
Has seen us…
He runs like the rough satyr Sun
Come away!