Contents -BIBLIOGRAPHIC RECORD

Harriet Monroe, ed. (1860–1936). The New Poetry: An Anthology. 1917.

Prussians Don't Believe in Dreams

Morris Gilbert

YESTERDAY I went by chance

Down the by-road called Romance,

Past the wicked witch’s grate

Just outside the village gate.

But the oven-fire was dead,

And I saw no ginger-bread

Youths and maidens propped with care

Up against the wall; and there

Was never sign of cat or toad,

Or broomstick with its eery load;

Nothing but an empty thatch

Where bats and mice would scorn to scratch.

Past the gate within the town

Red-tiled roofs were tumbling down,

While the town-clock, smoky, dour,

Struck a melancholy hour—

(Though it used to run askew

And skip a century or two

As it chose, and spin around

Backwards if it liked the sound

Of an “In that foreign clime….”

Or a “Once upon a time….”).

Tufted grass grew up between

Cobble-stones that once had seen

Fiddling gallows-birds, sad kings,

Golden swans, and stranger things;

Where once plodded merrily

’Prentices, gone off to see

The world, and with an artless ease

Bring giants suppliant to their knees….

Then I saw far down the way

An old man, crippling, bent, and gray.

“My name is Hans,” said he, and smiled—

“Hans in luck!—the Sunday child!”

Here was fortune come at last,

And Hans spoke up of what was past:

“Times have changed since I was young,

The Talking Oak has lost its tongue—

No more giants pass by here;

I’ve seen no dwarfs this forty year;

Youngest sons don’t come to good

These days as their grandaddies would—

Who is left? you ask—let’s see,

Why, Glück is left—and then there’s me….

“But Glück is gouty, tired, and gray;

Cinderella died today;

Both the tailor’s dancing elves

Are statues left on dusty shelves;

Snow White long has hobbled on

Through scorning to oblivion.

There’s one queazy snivelling hag

Living still in rag and tag;

But I don’t remember well

Her name—it might be Rapunzel!”