Which the giddy moth and beetle circle round in dubious flight.

V.

"Here the well chain's pleasant clanging,
Sings of coolness deep below;
There the vine leaves breathless hanging,
Shine transfigured in the glow,
And the pillars stare in silence at the shadows which they throw.

VI.

"Portly nurse, black-browed, red-vested,
Knits and dozes, drowsed with heat;
Bice, like a wren gold-crested,
Chirps and teases round her seat,
Hides the needles, plucks the stocking, rolls the cotton o'er her feet.

VII.

"Nurse must fetch a draught of water,
In the glass with painted wings,[1]
Nurse must show her little daughter
All her tale of silver rings,
Dear sweet nurse must sing a couplet--solemn nurse, who _never_
sings!

VIII.

"Blest Madonna! what a clamour!
Now the little torment tries,
Perched on tiptoe, all the glamour
Of her coaxing hands and eyes!
May she hold the glass she drinks from--just one moment, Bice cries.

IX.

"Nurse lifts high the Venice beaker,
Bossed with masks, and flecked with gold,
Scarce in time to 'scape the quicker
Little fingers over-bold,
Craving tendril-like to grasp it, with the will of four years old.

X.

"Pretty wood bird, pecking, flitting,
Round the cherries on the tree.
Ware the scarecrow, grimly sitting,
Crouched for silly things, like thee!
Nurse hath plenty such in ambush. 'Touch not, for it burns,'[2] quoth
she.

XI.

"And thine eyes' blue mirror widens
With an awestroke of belief;
Meekly following that blind guidance,
On thy finger's rosy sheaf,
Blow'st thou softly, fancy wounded, soothing down a painless grief.

XII.

"Nurse and nursling, learner, teacher,
Thus foreshadow things to come,
When the girl shall grow the creature
Of false terrors vain and dumb,
And entrust their baleful fetish with her being's scope and sum.

XIII.

"Then her heart shall shrink and wither,
Custom-straitened like her waist,
All her thought to cower together,
Huddling sheep-like with the rest,
With the flock of soulless bodies on a pattern schooled and laced.

XIV.

"Till the stream of years encrust her
With a numbing mail of stone,
Till her laugh lose half its lustre,
And her truth forswear its tone,
And she see God's migh