Classic Poem

In a little round dish he came sailing down;
He was dressed like a wooer who's going to wed;
He sailed the Rhine to Rotterdam town.
“Wilt thou have me for lover, Juffräuken?” he said.

“To my castle, beloved, I'll bear thee away.
In the bridal chamber that there will be thine
The roof is woven of shreds of hay,
And the walls are fashioned of shavings fine.

“It's as trim as a doll's house, dainty and neat,
And thou like a queen shalt merrily dwell:
A spider's web for our gossamer sheet,
For our bridal couch a walnut shell.

“Ants eggs every day in butter we'll fry,
And little green worms we'll cook and eat;
And my mother will leave me by-and-by
Three fumitories nice and sweet.

“And bacon, too, and rind I've got,
And thimbles full of the choicest wine;
A turnip grows in my garden plot.
Indeed thou shalt never have cause to repine.”

What a wooing was that: he pleaded so!
She sighed, “Alack!” and “Well-a-day!”
You'd have said she was going to die of woe,
But she boarded the dish and she sailed away.

Is the song about Christians or mice, or what?
Decide for yourselves; I hardly know.
'Tis a ditty I heard, and had almost forgot,
In Bavaria thirty years ago.