Midmost it glimmers in the mire
Like Jack o' Lanthorn's spark,
Lighting, with phosphorescent fire,
The green umbrageous dark.
There while thy thirsty glances drink
The fair and baneful plant,
Thy shoon within the ooze shall sink
And eke thine either pant.
_Pale Student_:
Give o'er, give o'er, thou wood-peckore;
The bark upon the tree,
Thou, at thy will, mayst peck and bore
But peck and bore not me.
Full two long hours I've searched about
And 't would in sooth be rum,
If I should now go back without
The Cypripedium.
_Picus Erythrocephalus_:
Farewell! Farewell! But this I tell
To thee, thou pale student,
Ere dews have fell, thou'lt rue it well
That woodward thou didst went:
Then whilst thou blows the drooping nose
And wip'st the pensive eye--
There where the sad _symplocarpus foetidus_ grows,
Then think--O think of I!
Loud flouted there that student wight
Solche warnynge for to hear;
"I scorn, old hen, thy threats of might,
And eke thine ill grammere."
"Go peck the lice (or green or red)
That swarm the bass-wood tree,
But wag no more thine addled head
Nor clack thy tongue at me.
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