Greyslaer :: :: University of Virginia Library

1.
There was an old hunter camped down by the kill,
Who fished in this water and shot on that hill;
The forest for him had no danger nor gloom,
For all that he wanted was plenty of room.
Says he, “The world's wide, there is room for us all;
Room enough in the green wood, if not in the hall.”
Room, boys, room, by the light of the moon,
For why shouldn't every man enjoy his own room?

2.
He wove his own mats, and his shanty was spread
With the skins he had dressed and stretched out overhead;
The branches of hemlock, piled deep on the floor,
Was his bed as he sung when the daylight was o'er,
“The world's wide enough, there is room for us all;
Room enough in the green wood, if not in the hall.”
Room, boys, room, by the light of the moon,
For why shouldn't every man enjoy his own room?

3.
That spring, half choked up by the dust of the road,
Through a grove of tall maples once limpidly flowed;
By the rock whence it bubbles his kettle was hung
Which their sap often filled, while the hunter he sung,
“The world's wide enough, there is room for us all;
Room enough in the green wood, if not in the hall.”
Room, boys, room, by the light of the moon,
For why shouldn't every man enjoy his own room?

4.
And still sung the hunter—when one gloomy day
He saw in the forest what saddened his lay,
'Twas the rut which a heavy-wheeled wagon had made,
Where the greensward grows thick in the broad forest glade—
“The world's wide enough, there is room for us all;
Room enough in the green wood, if not in the hall.”
Room, boys, room, by the light of the moon,
For why shouldn't every man enjoy his own room?

5.
He whistled his dog, and says he, “We can't stay;
I must shoulder my rifle, up traps, and away.”
Next day, mid those maples, the settler's axe rung,
While slowly the hunter trudged off as he sung,
“The world's wide enough, there is room for us all;
Room enough in the green wood, if not in the hall.”
Room, boys, room, by the light of the moon,
For why shouldn't every man enjoy his own room?