THE PICTURE BOOK.

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 n'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 wo n'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.