THE CAROUSEL

Jardin du Luxembourg

With a canopy and its shade it turns

for a short while, this little herd

of many-colored horses, all from the land

that lingers long, then disappears.

Some, it’s true, are hitched to carriages,

yet all have courage in their faces;

an angry red lion goes with them

and now and then a white elephant.

Even a stag is there, as in the woods,

except he wears a saddle and on top of it

a little blue girl sits all buckled in.

And on the lion rides a boy in white

who holds on tightly with his small, hot hand,

while the lion bares teeth and tongue.

And now and then a white elephant.

And on the horses they come skimming past—

girls in bright dresses also, almost too old

already for this leaping of horses; in the midst

of the lunge they look up, off, over here—

And now and then a white elephant.

And it goes on and hurries to be over

and only circles and turns and has no goal.

A red, a green, a gray coming past,

a little, scarcely formed profile—.

And from time to time a smile, turned this way,

elated and starry-eyed as it expends itself

on this blind, breathless play …