Children

Years back here we were children
and at the age 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 jailer tore everything off them,
down to their skins
they stood like milk cows without any clothes.

—

Tr. Robert Lowell