THE WILL AND THE WAY.
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I asked a thief to steal me a peach;He turned up his eyes;I asked a lithe lady to lie her downHoly and meek, she cries. As soon as I wentAn angel came;He winked at the thiefAnd smiled at the dame; And without one word spokeHad a peach from the tree;And 'twixt earnest and jokeEnjoyed the lady."[29] A much better and more solid version of the same fancy than the one givenin the "Selections" under the head of "Love's Secret;" which is ratherweakly and lax in manner. Our present poem has on the other hand anexquisite "lithe" grace of limb and suppleness of step, suitingdeliciously with the "light high laugh" in its tone: while for sweet andrapid daring, for angelically puerile impudence as it were, it may bematched against any song of its fantastic sort. Less complete in a small way, but worth taking some care of, is this carolof a fairy, emblem of a man's light hard tyranny of will, calling upon thebirds in the harness of Venus and the shafts in the hand of her son forhelp in setting up the kingdom of established and legal love: but caughthimself in the very setting of his net.
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