Sweet the meeting! all his young ones
Found he in that happy cavern
Where with Mumma he begot them,—
Four his sons, and daughters two.
Well-lick’d maidens were the latter,
Fair their hair, like parsons’ daughters
Brown the youths, the youngest only
With the single ear is black.
Now this youngest was the darling
Of his mother, who when playing
Happen’d once to bite his ear off,
And for very love she ate it.
He’s a very genial stripling,
At gymnastics very clever,
And he turns a somersault
Like the posture-master Massmann.
Sprig of autochthonic humour,
He his mother-tongue loves only,
And has never learnt the jargon
Of the Grecian and the Roman.
Fresh and free and good and merry,
Soap he holds in detestation,
(Luxury of modern washing,)
Like the posture-master Massmann.
But our young friend is most genial
Where upon the tree he clambers,
Which along the steepest rock-side
From the deep abyss upriseth,
And extendeth to the summit,
When the family at night-time
Gather all around their father,
Toying in the evening coolness.
Then the old one loves to tell them
What he in the world has witness’d;
How he many men and cities
Had beheld, and greatly suffer’d,
Like Laertes’ noble offspring,
But in one thing still unlike him,—
Namely, that his wife went with him,
His dear black Penelope.