Poetry Archives

When I was not quite five years old
  I first saw the blue picture book,
And Fraulein Spitzenburger told
Stories that sent me hot and cold;
  I loathed it, yet I had to look:
  It was a German book.

I smiled at first, for she’d begun
  With a back-garden broad and green,
And rabbits nibbling there:  page one
Turned; and the gardener fired his gun
  From the low hedge:  he lay unseen
  Behind:  oh, it was mean!

They’re hurt, they can’t escape, and so
  He stuffs them head-down in a sack,
Not quite dead, wriggling in a row,
And Fraulein laughed, “Ho, ho!  Ho, ho!”
  And gave my middle a hard smack,
  I wish that I’d hit back.

Then when I cried she laughed again;
  On the next page was a dead boy
Murdered by robbers in a lane;
His clothes were red with a big stain
  Of blood, he held a broken toy,
  The poor, poor little boy!

I had to look:  there was a town
  Burning where every one got caught,
Then a fish pulled a nigger down
Into the lake and made him drown,
  And a man killed his friend; they fought
  For money, Fraulein thought.

Old Fraulein laughed, a horrid noise.
  “Ho, ho!”  Then she explained it all
How robbers kill the little boys
And torture them and break their toys.
  Robbers are always big and tall:
  I cried:  I was so small.

How a man often kills his wife,
  How every one dies in the end
By fire, or water or a knife.
If you’re not careful in this life,
  Even if you can trust your friend,
  You won’t have long to spend.

I hated it—old Fraulein picked
  Her teeth, slowly explaining it.
I had to listen, Fraulein licked
Her fingers several times and flicked
  The pages over; in a fit
  Of rage I spat at it…

And lying in my bed that night
  Hungry, tired out with sobs, I found
A stretch of barren years in sight,
Where right is wrong, but strength is right,
  Where weak things must creep underground,
  And I could not sleep sound.