His Shadow
I was under the finest leaves yesterday
waiting for a girl, a second Elen,
sheltering from the rain under the green cloak
4 of a birchtree like a madman.
Above me I could see a sort of ugly figure
standing on its own.
I started back in fright
8 as any innocent man would
and crossed myself against mortal danger
with holy charms.
'Say now who you are,
12 don't be dumb, you are a man.'
'I am your own peculiar shadow,
stop your questioning.
Shut up, by Mary, for your own good,
16 and let me deliver my message.
I have come, good custom,
by your side in my naked form
to show you what you are like,
20 jewel who complains so gently. You are bewitched.'
'No, my good man (ugly wretch),
I'm not like that, appearance of a fiend.
Shape like a hump-backed goat,
24 strange likeness, you are more like
a fearsome phantom
than a normal human being.
A squabbling herdsman in chequered dress,
28 an old woman's shanks on black stilts;
shepherd of phantoms carrying a load of filth,
bogeyman shaped like a bald monk;
herdsman playing hobby-horse,
32 lanky heron grazing bog reeds;
crane stretching to its full length,
with spectre's legs, on the edge of the cornfield;
face like a blockhead pilgrim,
36 a black friar in an old cloak;
shape like a corpse wrapped in a hempen sheet,
where have you been, you old farmyard pole?'
'Many a day with you,
40 were I to reproach you with it, woe to you if I know you!'
'What fault do you know of mine,
you with neck like a pitcher,
other than what everyone with any sense
44 already knows? You devil's dung!
I never reviled my commote,
I never struck a blow half-heartedly, that I know;
I never pelted hens with a catapult,
48 I never terrified little kids;
I never go against my instinct,
I never hindered a stranger's wife.'
'By my faith, if I were to tell
52 what I know to those who don't know it,
upon my word, before you could prevent it
you'd surely be strung up.'
'Be quiet, you nasty snare,
56 and don't ever let on what you know
as long as you belong to me,
any more than if your lips were sown together.'