Peer and the Troll Witch
PEER
[after a long silence]
The Boyg said, “Go roundabout!”— so one must here.—
There fell my fine palace, with crash and clatter!
There’s a wall around her whom I stood so near,
of a sudden all’s ugly — my joy has grown old.—
Roundabout, lad! There’s no way to be found
right through all this from where you stand to her.
Right through? Hm, surely there should be one.
There’s a text on repentance, unless I mistake.
But what? What is it? I haven’t the book,
I’ve forgotten it mostly, and here there is none
that can guide me aright in the pathless wood.—
Repentance? And maybe ’twould take whole years,
ere I fought my way through. ’Twere a meagre life, that.