I

What tho’ the outer day be brazen rude

not here the innocence of morn is fled:

this green unbroken dusk attests it wed

with freshness, where the shadowy breasts are nude,

hers guess’d, whose looks, felt dewy-cool, elude —

save this reproach that smiles on foolish dread:

wood-word, grave gladness in its heart, unsaid,

knoweth the guarded name of Quietude.

Nor start, if satyr-shapes across the path

tumble; it is but children: lo, the wrath

couchant, heraldic, of her beasts that pierce

with ivory single horn whate’er misplaced

outrageous nears, or whinny of the fierce

Centaur, or mailed miscreant unchaste.