The hidden glades of the coral wood,
For the walrus, a worthy quarry!
From yonder mast a flag streams out
As bold as a royal pennant;
I can watch the good ship lunge about
From this tower of which I am tenant;
But oh, might I be in the battling ship,
Might I seize the rudder and steer her,
How gay o'er the foaming reef we'd slip
Like the sea-gulls circling near her!
Were I a hunter wandering free.
Or a soldier in some sort of fashion,
Or if I at least a man might be.
The heav'ns would grant me my passion.
But now I must sit as fine and still
As a child in its best of dresses.
And only in secret may have my will
And give to the wind my tresses.
THE DESOLATE HOUSE[1] (1842)
Deep in a dell a woodsman's house
Has sunk in wild dilapidation;
There buried under vines and boughs
I often sit in contemplation.
So dense the tangle that the day
Through heavy lashes can but glimmer;
The rocky cleft is rendered dimmer
By overshadowing tree-trunks gray.
Within that dell I love to hear
The flies with their tumultuous humming,
And solitary beetles near
- ↑ Translator: Charles Wharton Stork.
