Page:Masterpieces of German literature volume 7.djvu/506

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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 (1842)

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

Amid the bushes softly drumming.