Looney
“Where have you been; what have you seen
Walking in rags down the street?”
“I come from a land, where cold was the strand,
Where no men were me to greet.
I came on a boat empty afloat.
I sat me thereon; swift did it swim;
Sail — less it fled’ oar — less it sped;
The stony beaches faded dim.
It bore me away, wetted with spray,
Wrapped in the mist, to another land;
Stars were glimmering; the shore was shimmering,
Moon on the foam, silver the sand.
I gathered me stones whiter than bones,
Pearls and crystals and glittering shells;
I climbed into meadows fluttered with shadows,
Culling there flowers with shivering bells,
Garnering leaves grasses in sheaves.
I clad me in raiment jewel — green,
My body enfolded in purple and gold;
Stars were in my eyes, and the moonsheen.
There was many a song all the night long
Down in the valley, many a thing
Running to and fro: hares white as snow,
Voles out of holes, moths on the wing
With lantern eyes. In quiet surprise
Badgers were staring out the dark doors.
There was dancing there, wings in the air,
Feet going quick on the green floors.
There came a dark cloud. I shouted aloud;
Answer was none, as onward I went.
In my ears dimmed a hurrying wind;
My hair was a-lowing, my back was bent.
I walked in a wood; silent it stood
And no leaf bore; bare were the boughs.
There did I sit wandering in wit;
Owls went by their hollow house.
I journeyed away for a year and day —
Shadows were on me, stones beneath —
Under the hills, over the hills,
And the wind a-whistling through the heath.
Birds there flying, ceaselessly crying;
Voices I heard in the grey caves
Down by the shore. The water was fore,
Mist was there lying on the long waves.
There stood the boat, still did it float
In the tide spinning, on the water tossing.
I sat me therein; swift did it swim
The waves climbing, the seas crossing.
Passing old hulls clustered with gulls,
And the great ships laden with light,
Coming to haven, dark as a raven,
Silent as owl, deep in the night.
Houses were shuttered, wind round them muttered;
Roads were all empty. I sat by a door
In pattering rain, counting my gain:
Only withering leaves and pebbles I bore,
And a single shell, where I hear still the spell
Echoing far, as down the street
Ragged I walk. To myself I must talk,
For seldom they speak, men that I meet.”
„Умопобъркан”. В „Списание Оксфорд”, Оксфорд, том 52, № 9 (18 януари 1934), стр. 340.
Поема, чиято преработена версия е публикувана под заглавие „Камбанката” в „Приключенията на Том Бомбадил”.