Children"

Years back here we were children
and at the stage of running
in gangs about the meadows--
here to this one, there to that one.
Where we picked up violets
on lucky days,
you can now see cattle gadding about.

I still remember hunching
ankle deep in violets,
squabbling over which bunches were fairest.
Our childishness was obvious--
we ran dancing rounds,
we wore new green wreaths.
So time passes.

Here we ran swilling strawberries from oak to pine
through hedges, through turnstiles--
as long as day was burning down.
Once a gardener
rushed from an arbor:
"O.K. now, children, run home."

We came out in spots
those yesterdays, when we stuffed on strawberries;
it was just a childish game to us.
Often we heard
the herdsman
hooing and warning us:
"Children, the woods are alive with snakes."

And one of the children breaking
through the sharp grass, grew white
and shouted, "Children, a snake
ran in there. He got our pony.
She'll never get well.
I wish that snake
would go to hell!"

"Well then, get out of the woods!
If you don't hurry away quickly,
I'll tell you what will happen--
if you don't leave the forest behind you by daylight,
you'll lose yourselves;
your pleasure will end in bawling."

Do you know how five virgins
dawdled in the meadow,
till the king slammed his dining-room door?
Their shouting and shame were outrageous:
their jailor tore everything off them,
down to their skins
they stood like milk cows without any clothes.

Auteur: Robert Lowell