Here thou needst not dread the raven in the sky,
He will not come to thee, our Cottage is hard by,
Night and day thou art safe as living thing can be,
Be happy then and rest, what is't that aileth thee?
As homeward through the lane I went with lazy feet,
This song to myself did I oftentimes repeat,
And it seem'd as I retrac'd the ballad line by line
That but half of it was hers, and one half of it was mine.
Again, and once again did I repeat the song,
"Nay" said I, "more than half to the Damsel must belong,
For she look'd with such a look, and she spake with such a tone,
That I almost receiv'd her heart into my own."
Written in GERMANY,
On one of the coldest days of the Century.
I must apprize the Reader that the stoves in North Germany generally have the impression of a galloping Horse upon them, this being part of the Brunswick Arms.
A fig for your languages, German and Norse,
Let me have the song of the Kettle,
And the tongs and the poker, instead of that horse
That gallops away with such fury and force
On this dreary dull plate of black metal.
Our earth is no doubt made of excellent stuff,
But her pulses beat slower and slower.
The weather in Forty was cutting and rough,
And then, as Heaven knows, the glass stood low enough,
And now it is four degrees lower.
Here's a Fly, a disconsolate creature, perhaps
A child of the field, or the grove,
And sorrow for him! this dull treacherous heat
Has seduc'd the poor fool from his winter retreat,
And he creeps to the edge of my stove.
Alas! how he fumbles about the domains
Which this comfortless oven environ,
He cannot find out in what track he must crawl
Now back to the tiles, and now back to the hall,
And now on the brink of the iron.
Stock-still there he stands like a traveller bemaz'd,
The best of his skill he has tried;
His feelers methinks I can see him put forth
To the East and the West, and the South and the North,
But he finds neither guide-post nor guide.