So they go hurrying, stanzas malign, Drunken words—what a clattering, banging!— Till the whole company, line on line, All on the rhythmic chain are hanging. Has he really a cruel heart, your poet? Are there fiends who rejoice, the slaughter to see? "Yes, yes, good sir, you are a poet," Chirped out the pecker, mocking me. So you jest at me, bird, with your scornful graces? So sore indeed is the plight of my head? And my heart, you say, in yet sorrier case is? Beware! for my wrath is a thing to dread! Yet e'en in the hour of his wrath the poet Rhymes you and sings with the selfsame glee. "Yes, yes, good sir, you are a poet," Chirped out the pecker, mocking me. IN THE SOUTH.[16] I swing on a bough, and rest My tired limbs in a nest, In the rocking home of a bird, Wherein I perch as his guest, In the South! I gaze on the ocean asleep, On the purple sail of a boat; On the harbour and tower steep, On the rocks that stand out of the deep, In the South! For I could no longer stay, To crawl in slow German way; So I called to the birds, bade the wind Lift me up and bear me away To the South! No reasons for me, if you please; Their end is too dull and too plain; But a pair of wings and a breeze, With courage and health and ease, And games that chase disease From the South! Wise thoughts can move without sound, But I've songs that I can't sing alone; So birdies, pray gather around, And listen to what I have found In the South! * * * "You are merry lovers and false and gay, In frolics and sport you pass the day; Whilst in the North, I shudder to say, I worshipped a woman, hideous and gray, Her name was Truth, so I heard them say, But I left her there and I flew away To the South!" BEPPA THE PIOUS. While beauty in my face is, Be piety my care, For God, you know, loves lasses, And, more than all, the fair. And if yon hapless monkling Is fain with me to live, Like many another monkling, God surely will forgive.