I leave the mad squirrel to clamber and climb,
’Mid brushwood, and brambles, and branches sublime:
The squirrel may scramble so high up the tree
That he cannot come down—but no climbing for me!
I leave the rash sailor the ocean to sweep,
With a puny inch plank between him and the deep:
Let him rove till he tires o’er his perilous track,
A proverb of luck if he ever comes back.
The archer who aims at the target his blow,
Flings the dust from his arrow, the dust from his bow;
And rarely he poises his arrow in vain,
If he aim but aright—if he shoot but with pain.
But, poor bard! if one maiden but fall to his lot
In a thousand—alas, ’tis a mere random shot!
Thou girl with the eye-brow so auburn and thin,
Thrice happy the man who thy beauty shall win;
Thou wilt not be mine for abundance of song—
I know that thou wilt not, while thou art yet young;
But still I despair not, enchantress divine!
When nobody’ll have thee, thou then shalt be mine!
In the next poem he asks the roebuck to be his love-envoy to Dyddgu, telling him that he has nothing to fear from the hounds of the “tall baron;” that if they pursue him he may hide himself in the fern. He adds, that if he carries the love-letter safe to Dyddgu he will be rewarded.
No hand shall flay thee; thou shalt live in health and joy;
Thy skin shall not be possessed by an old Saxon;
