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Drab Habitation of Whom?
Tabernacle or Tomb—
Or Dome of Worm—
Or Porch of Gnome—
Or some Elf's Catacomb?

Down they go!
Hail and snow!
Freezes and sneezes and noses will blow!

Down the stream the swans all glide;
It's quite the cheapest way to ride.
Their legs get wet,
Their tummies wetter:
I think after all
The bus is better

'My stomach's full of butterflies!'
lamented Dora Diller.
Her mother sighed. 'That's no surprise,
you ate a caterpillar!'

Don't worry, spiders,
I keep house
casually.


Translated by Robert Hass

Don't unveil the face,
Don't glitter the scene.
Don't try to test my race,
The race not in reign.

Poems have order, sanity
aesthetic distance from debris.
All I've learnt from pain
I always knew,
but could not do.

Look, don't kill that fly!
It is making a prayer to you
By rubbing its hands and feet.

If you’re rigid in your thinking,
you’re not really thinking.

Don't imitate me;
it's as boring
as the two halves of a melon.


Translated by Robert Hass