THEY all climbed up on a high board-fence -- Nine little goblins, with green-glass eyes -- Nine little goblins that had no sense, And couldn't tell coppers from cold mince pies; And they all climbed up on the fence, and sat -- And I asked them what they were staring at. And the first one said, as he scratched his head With a queer little arm that reached out of his ear And rasped its claws in his hair so red -- "This is what this little arm is fer!" And he scratched and stared, and the next one said, "How on earth do @3you@1 scratch your head?" And he laughed like the screech of a rusty hinge -- Laughed and laughed till his face grew black; And when he choked, with a final twinge Of his stifling laughter, he thumped his back With a fist that grew on the end of his tail Till the breath came back to his lips so pale. And the third little goblin leered round at me -- And there were no lids on his eyes at all, -- And he clucked one eye, and he says, says he, "What is the style of your socks this fall?" And he clapped his heels -- and I sighed to see That he had hands where his feet should be. Then a bald-faced goblin, gray and grim, Bowed his head, and I saw him slip His eyebrows off, as I looked at him, And paste them over his upper lip; And then he moaned in remorseful pain -- "Would -- Ah, would I'd me brows again!" And then the whole of the goblin band Rocked on the fence-top to and fro, And clung, in a long row, hand in hand, Singing the songs that they used to know -- Singing the songs that their grandsires sung In the goo-goo days of the goblin-tongue. And ever they kept their green-glass eyes Fixed on me with a stony stare -- Till my own grew glazed with a dread surmise, And my hat whooped up on my lifted hair, And I felt the heart in my breast snap to, As you've heard the lid of a snuffbox do. And they sang: "You're asleep! There is no board-fence, And never a goblin with green-glass eyes! -- 'Tis only a vision the mind invents After a supper of cold mince pies. -- And you're doomed to dream this way," they said, -- @3"And you shan't wake up till you're clean plum dead!"@1 | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...IN A RESTAURANT by SARA TEASDALE TO JOHN DONNE (2) by BEN JONSON THE QUEEN'S RIDE; AN INVITATION by THOMAS BAILEY ALDRICH FOR MY CHILD by JOHANNA AMBROSIUS QUESTION AND ANSWER by MATHILDE BLIND COMPENSATION by E. M. BRAINARD |