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Salient. An Organ of Student Opinion at Victoria College, Wellington, N.Z. Vol. 15, No. 15. August 7, 1952

To A Young Child

To A Young Child

Ah, child, you do not know what tangled tales
Lie hidden in the woods, under what
Rosebush the fabulous kangarooster rails,
Nor can you guess until those cheeks grow pale.

Except in some Johnsonian nightmare:
The [unclear: tom]
Of desire, both [unclear: bring] despair
At ashen flanks, [unclear: breaking] into cave.

Child, over what [unclear: unfamished] pits, black lakes
You journey, take the Alice-in-Wonderland
Mirror, transforming [unclear: flesh] into stone, stone into cakes,
Which edible, of innocence partakes.

O, I have heard the muffled drum and sound
Of trumpets frenzied like homunculus,
And sunk in dark yet milky depths of death that round
And wretched pebbles bear to nightmare's ground.

The tangled woods are with me now and fears
Lend bulbous to night's orifice cannon
And bloody round, a multitude of carmine spears,
Tips dripping with the pearl-regret of tears.

Child, let the sleeping kangaroostcr dream
For dint and drum of violence is its rest,
And childhood's Gentle waking leads to mountain streams
In Arcady; other the gibbet's nightmare dream.

Freud.