Poetry Explorer

Classic and Contemporary Poetry

TWO DUETS, FR. ARION, AN UNPUBLISHED MASQUE by ARTHUR THOMAS QUILLER-COUCH

Poet Analysis

First Line: AGLAI-A! AGLAI-A! / SWEET, AWAKEN AND BE GLAD
Last Line: AN IDLE LIE DELUDED!
Subject(s): LOVE; NATURE;
I

@3He.@1 AGLAI-A! Aglai-a!
Sweet, awaken and be glad.
@3She.@1 Who is this that calls Aglaia?
Is it thou, my dearest lad?
@3He.@1 'Tis Arion, 'tis Arion,
Who calls thee from sleep—
From slumber who bids thee
'To follow and number
His kids and his sheep.
@3She.@1 Nay, leave to entreat me!
If mother should spy on
Us twain, she would beat me.
@3He.@1 Then come, my love, come!
And hide with Arion
Where green woods are dumb!

@3She.@1 Ar-i-on! Ar-i-on!
Closer, list! I am afraid!
@3He.@1 Whisper, then, thy love Arion,
From thy window, lily maid.
@3She.@1 Yet Aglaia, yet Aglaia
Hath heard them debate
Of wooing repenting—
'Who trust to undoing,
Lament them too late.'
@3He.@1 Nay, nay, when I woo thee,
Thy mother might spy on
All harm I shall do thee.
@3She.@1 I come, then—I come!
To follow Arion
Where green woods be dumb.

SONG

Sparrow of Love, so sharp to peck,
Arrow of Love—I bare my neck
Down to the bosom. See, no fleck

Of blood! I have never a wound; I go
Forth to the greenwood. Yet, heigh-ho!
What 'neath my girdle flutters so?

'Tis not a bird, and yet hath wings,
'Tis not an arrow, yet it stings;
While in the wound it nests and sings—
Heigh-ho!
@3He.@1 Of Arion, of Arion
That wound thou shalt learn;
What nothings 'tis made of,
And soft pretty soothings
In shade of the fern.

@3She.@1 When maids have a mind to,
Man's word they rely on,
Old warning are blind to—
I come, then—I come
To walk with Arion
Where green woods are dumb!

II

@3He.@1 Dear my love, and O my love,
And O my love so lately
Did we wander yonder grove
And sit awhile sedately?
For either you did there conclude
To do at length as I did,
Or passion's fashion's turn'd a prude,
And troth's an oath derided.

@3She.@1 Yea, my love—and nay, my love—
And ask me not to tell, love,
While I delay'd an idle day
What 'twixt us there befell, love.
Yet either I did sit beside
And do at length as you did,
Or my delight is lightly by
An idle lie deluded!



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