It was the strong-room of the milk; and, when the grim old guardian of the dairy unlocked the door, with a sound of rusty locks and falling bolts, there, cool and cloistral, were the fragrant pans and bowls, the most sacred vessels of the farm.
"_She bathed her body many a time In fountains filled with milk_." I hummed to Colin; but I took care that the old man didn't hear me.

And we agreed, as we went on again along the road, that he did right to guard well and charge well for so noble and so innocent a drink.

Indeed, the old fellow's buttermilk was so good that I think it must have gone to my head.

In no other way can I account for the following dithyrambic song: _Let whoso will sing Bacchus' vine, We know a drink that's more divine; 'Tis white and innocent as doves, Fragrant and bosom-white as love's White bosom on a Summer day, And fragrant as the hawthorn spray.
Let Dionysus and his crew, Garlanded, drain their fevered brew, And in the orgiastic bowl Drug and besot the sacred soul; This simple country cup we drain Knows not the ghosts of sin and pain, No fates or furies follow him Who sips from its cream-mantled rim.
Yea! all his thoughts are country-sweet, And safe the walking of his feet, However hard and long the way-- With country sleep to end the day.
To drain this cup no man shall rue-- The innocent madness of the dew Who shall repent, or frenzy fine Of morning star, or the divine Inebriation of the hours When May roofs in the world with flowers! About this cup the swallows skim, And the low milking-star hangs dim Across the meadows, and the moon Is near in heaven_--_the young moon; And murmurs sweet of field and hill Loiter awhile, and all is still.
As in some chapel dear to Pan, The fair milk glimmers in the can, And, in the silence cool and white, The cream mounts through the listening night; And, all around the sleeping house, You hear the breathing of the cows, And drowsy rattle of the chain, Till lo! the blue-eyed morn again_..