Tuesday 16 August 2016

Christian Morgenstern: Two nonsense poems


The Aesthetic Weasel (tr. Max F. Knight)

A weasel
perched on an easel
within a patch of teasel.

But why
and how?


The Moon Cow
whispered her reply
one time:


The sopheest-
icated beest
did it just for the rhyme.


The Seagulls (tr. Karl F. Ross)

The seagulls by their looks suggest
that Emma is their name;
they wear a white and fluffy vest
and are the hunter's game.


I never shoot a seagull dead;
their life I do not take.
I like to feed them gingerbread
and bits of raisin cake.


O human, you will never fly
the way the seagulls do;
but if your name is Emma, why,
be glad they look like you.



Morgenstern (1871-1914) had very German philosophical pretensions but it’s for his rather un-German nonsense verse that he’s remembered. His (English) Wikipedia page contains his “Night Song of the Fish”, which reads the same in German and English.

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