The House of Leaves
Handsome lively poets, my golden girl,
greetings, colour of foam at sea's edge,
to the beautiful girl who welcomed me
4 in birch and hazel grove, May's mantles,
she is dazzling and haughty, above slope's edge,
a good place to appreciate a girl's colour.
True furniture of the secluded palace,
8 better is a room which grows.
If my slender gentle sweetheart comes
to the house of leaves made by God the Father,
the lovely trees will give solace,
12 it will be a sootless house today.
Lying beneath its roof will be no worse,
no worse is God's tenancy (than any other).
My partner and I are of one mind.
16 There in the trees we will be able
to hear the chattering of birds,
minstrels of the woods, the bright lady will love them:
the cywyddau of the little birds,
20 true natives of the leaves amongst the interwoven branches;
a people with a happy story to tell,
chicks who are the musicians of the oak castle.
A magician will endow my house,
24 the hands of May will wattle it,
and its plumbline is the merry cuckoo
and its square is the nightingale of the woods,
and its roofer is the long summer day
28 and its laths are love's true pangs,
and the grove is a fitting altar of love,
and I am its axe.
Lo at the year's beginning
32 it will grow taller than a man's height.
I have no intention of giving payment
to an old woman from a narrow nook.
I will seek nothing from the house which I rejected,
36 I will recount violence [I suffered there].