SAID the dairymaid With her hooped petticoat Swishing like water . . . To the hemlocks she said, "Afraid Am I of each sheep and goat -- For I am Pan's daughter!" Dark as Africa and Asia The vast trees weep -- The Margravine learned as Aspasia, Has fallen asleep. Her small head, beribboned With her yellow satin hair, Like satin ribbons, butter-yellow, That the faunal noon has made more mellow Has drooped asleep . . . And a snore forlorn Sounds like Pan's horn. On pointed toe I creep -- Look through the diamonded pane Of the window in the dairy -- Then out I slip again, In my hooped petticoat like old Morgane the fairy. Like a still-room maid's yellow print gown Are the glazed chintz buttercups of summer Where the kingly cock in a feathered smock and a red-gold crown Rants like a barn-door mummer. And I heard the Margravine say To the ancient bewigged Abbe "I think it is so clever Of people to discover New planets -- and how ever Do they find out what their names are?" Then, clear as the note of a clarinet, her hair Called Pan across the fields, Pan like the forlorn wind, From the Asian, African darkness of the trees in his lair -- To play with her endless vacancy of mind! | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...SUNSET by GEORGIA DOUGLAS JOHNSON GENEVIEVE AND ALEXANDRA (2) by EDWIN ARLINGTON ROBINSON GOOD FRIDAY HYMN by GEORGE SANTAYANA TWO RIVERS by RALPH WALDO EMERSON NOTHING GOLD CAN STAY by ROBERT FROST MARY MAGDALENE by GEORGE HERBERT |