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d.
- Still southward, southward clove my keel
- the salt sea-currents through.
- Where palms were swaying proud and fair,
- a garland round the ocean-bight,
- I set my ship afire.
- I climbed aboard the desert ship,
- a ship on four stout legs.
- It foamed beneath the lashing whip-
- oh, catch me; I'm a flitting bird;-
- I'm twittering on a bough!
- Anitra, thou'rt the palm-tree's must;
- that know I now full well!
- Ay, even the Angora goat-milk cheese
- is scarcely half such dainty fare,
- Anitra, ah, as thou!
- [He hangs the lute over his shoulder, and comes forward.]
- Stillness! Is the fair one listening?
- Has she heard my little song?
- Peeps she from behind the curtain,
- veil and so forth cast aside?-
- Hush! A sound as though a cork
- from a bottle burst amain!
- Now once more! And yet again!
- Love-sighs can it be? or songs?-
- No, it is distinctly snoring.-
- Dulcet strain! Anitra sleepeth!
- Nightingale, thy warbling stay!
- Every sort of woe betide thee,
- if with gurgling trill thou darest-
- but, as says the text: Let be!
- Nightingale, thou art a singer;
- ah, even such an one am I.
- He, like me, ensnares with music
- tender, shrinking little hearts.
