Modern Love: XVIII

Here Jack and Tomare are paired with Moll and Meg. Curved open to the river-reach is seen A country merry-making on the green. Fair space for signal shakings of the leg. That little screwy fiddler from his booth, Whence flows one nut-brown stream, commands the joints Of all who caper here at various points. I have known rustic revels in my youth: The May-fly pleasures of a mind at ease. An early goddess was a country lass: A charmed Amphion-oak she tripped the grass. What life was that I lived? The life of these? Heaven keep them happy! Nature they seem near. They must, I think, be wiser than I am; They have the secret of the bull and lamb. ’Tis true that when we trace its source, ’tis beer.