GLOOMY NEIGHBOR

by Robert Walser

translated by Daniele Pantano

It does sit there like another house,
but all day long the screaming
of poor children leaks out.
The children of “better” people
are seized promptly by the ears, promptly,
and the ones of the poor twice as fast.
O that spite must now add
its foot to misery and despair,
that all the poor have already
been chosen as hate’s first victims.

It does sit there like another house,
but all day long the crying
of poor children leaks out.

 

                       

           

           

 

           

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