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O owl, O owl, |
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You have taken my young ones; -- |
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Do not [also] destroy my nest. |
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With love and with toil, |
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I nourished them. -- I am to be pitied. |
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Before the sky was dark with rain, |
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I gathered the roots of the mulberry tree, |
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And bound round and round my window and door. |
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Now ye people below, |
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Dare any of you despise my house? |
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With my claws I tore and held. |
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Through the rushes which I gathered, |
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And all the materials I collected, |
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My mouth was all sore; -- |
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I said to myself, ' I have not yet got my house complete. ' |
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My wings are all-injured; |
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My tail is all-broken; |
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My house is in a perilous condition; |
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It is tossed about in the wind and rain: -- |
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I can but cry out with this note of alarm. |
Published
by The Institute for Advanced Technology in the Humanities, © Copyright 2003
by Anne Kinney and the University of Virginia