Canto XIX

Childe John had two companions on the road:
One was his grief — his poor heart's heavy load. —
The other one 's tlhe good old sword he bore,
Rust covers it, the stains of Turkish gore.

O'er untrod paths he wandered with the twain,
The moon changed oft and changed and changed

again,
The wintry earth fair springtime's garb assumed,
He soliloquized thus, — by grief consumed:

"Tell me, o, grief, thou everlasting woe:
Willt thou to torment me e'er weary grow?
If thou can'st kill me, then go, tantalize
Some other soul which rather sighs then dies.

I want to die, if thou bringest no death,
I'll see to it my life encountereth
Real danger! Come adventure! Come real strife,
I gladly yield to you my orphaned life."

And saying this he casts his woes away,
Though, here and there-, they still on his mind prey,
— He had hardened his heart, — but still, a tear
They often caused in his eyes to appear.

And then, — his tears would even no more flow
His dreary life 's a heavy burden though,
He carries it with him into a wood
Where in the road a heavy cart-load stood.

With earthenware was filled the heavy truck.
Which to the linch pin in the mire got stuck.
The potter whipped the horses: "Git up! go!"
He yelled a-whipping them, 't was no use though.

"God bless you. Sir. good day!" John to him said.
The potter looks at him, from wroth all red.
And angrily responds: "The devil, Sir,
Is master here, my horses will not stir."

"We are not in good humor I can see!"
— "How can a fellow in good humor be?
Since morning I my horses urge to move,
Xo use, they stick as if glued to this groove."

"Ill help thee soon enough, but tell me please:
Where leads the road, one to the right here sees?"
John asked and showed a road which crossed

the wood,
A few feet to the right from where they stood,

"That road there? Oh! Thou leave that road alone,
No man who ever entered it it was known
To have returned, and more I shall not tell,
It leads to where a race of giants dwell."

John said: "Leave that to me; now let us see
How can this truck of thine I move for thee?"
With that he caught the poleshaft and one! two!
With ease, the truck to dry, high ground then drew.

The potter looked amazed and gasped and stared.
To witness strength like that had him all scared.
Regaining calm, his thanks he wished to say.
But John had struck that road, was far away.

John walked and walked and ere long he beheld
The country's outskirts where the giants dwelled.
A swiftly running brook 's the border line,
— 'T was big e'en for a river, I opine.

A giant field-guard stood watching the brook.
When John attempted in his eyes to look
He had to raise his head as would he try
To see the spire of a church, way up high.

When he, the giant guard, saw John come near,
With thundrous voice, — the bellow of steer —
He yelled: "I see a man crawls in that grass,
My soles just itch and if he tries to pass"

I'll step on him"; and bringing down his foot
To crush our John, Jotan took his sword and put
It up so, that the giant stepped on it
And pierced his foot and fell across the pit.

"He fell just as I wanted him to fall"
John, in his mind, said to himself; "the tall
Man's body serves me as a bridge" and o'er
The body he crossed to the other shore.

He was across before the giant stirred,
Or ere a word or moan of his wa.s heard,
Then with his sword he strikes a mighty blow,
Off goes the head of the much dreaded foe.

The field guard never rose and nevermore
Stood at his post upon that streamlet's shore.
An eclipse of the sun came to His eyes,
The light to see he nevermore shall rise.

The streamlet's water flows and ceaseless flows,
But of the giant's blood the color shows.
And John? Did fortune come to him or woe?
Within a minute or two we shall know.