Wand’ring onward, to myself I
Spoke: “’Tis singular that madness
Sits and sings upon yon bridge,
That from France to Spain leads over.
“Is this madman but the emblem
“Of the interchange ’mongst nations
“Of their thoughts? or his own country’s
“Wild and crazy title-page?”
We arrived not until evening
At the wretched small posada,
Where an olla-podrida
In a dirty dish was smoking.
There I swallow’d some garbanzos,
Heavy, large as musket-bullets,
Indigestible to Germans,
Though to dumplings they’re accustom’d.
Fit companion to the cooking
Was the bed. With insects pepper’d
It appear’d. The bugs, alas! are
Far the greatest foes of man.
Fiercer than the wrath of thousand
Elephants, I find the hatred
Of one tiny little bug,
When across my bed it crawleth.
One must let them bite in quiet,—
This is bad enough,—still more ’tis
If one crushes them. The stink then
Keeps one all night long in torment.
Yes, the fiercest earthly trouble
Is the fight with noxious vermin,
Who a stench employ as weapons,—
Is a duel with a bug!
CAPUT XII.
How they rave, the race of poets,
E’en the tame ones, singing ever
And exclaiming: “Nature’s surely
“The Creator’s mighty temple—