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A. D., 1916 | | Rapunzel, Rapunzel, |
| Let down your hair! |
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, | 5 |
| 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; | 10 |
| Nothing but an empty thatch | |
| Where bats and mice would scorn to scratch. | |
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| Past the gate within the town | |
| Red-tiled roofs were tumbling down, | |
| While the town-clock, smoky, dour, | 15 |
| 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 | 20 |
| 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, | 25 |
| 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…. | 30 |
| |
| 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, | 35 |
| 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; | 40 |
| 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; | 45 |
| 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. | 50 |
| There’s one queazy snivelling hag | |
| Living still in rag and tag; | |
| But I don’t remember well | |
Her name—it might be Rapunzel!”
| | Rapunzel, Rapunzel, |
| Let down your hair! |
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