'Pluck not a hair!' a hidden rabbit cried,

'With but one hair he'll steal thy heart away,

Then only sorrow shall thy lattice hide:

Go in! all honest pedlars come by day.'

There was dead silence in the drowsy wood;

'Here's syrup for to lull sweet maids to sleep;

And bells for dreams, and fairy wine and food

All day thy heart in happiness to keep';—

And now she takes the scissors on her thumb,—

'O, then, no more unto my lattice come!'

O sad the sound of weeping in the wood!

Now only night is where the Pedlar was;

And bleak as frost upon a too-sweet bud

His magic steals in darkness, O alas!

Why all the summer doth sweet Lettice pine?

And, ere the wheat is ripe, why lies her gold

Hid 'neath fresh new-pluckt sprigs of eglantine?

Why all the morning hath the cuckoo tolled,

Sad to and fro in green and secret ways,

With lonely bells the burden of his days?

And, in the market-place, what man is this

Who wears a loop of gold upon his breast,

Stuck heartwise; and whose glassy flatteries

Take all the townsfolk ere they go to rest

Who come to buy and gossip? Doth his eye

Remember a face lovely in a wood?

O people! hasten, hasten, do not buy

His woful wares; the bird of grief doth brood

There where his heart should be; and far away

Dew lies on grave-flowers this selfsame day!