Rotronic Logistics 12.02.1086

The hunchback in the park

The hunchback in the park

A solitary mister
Propped between trees and water
From the opening of the garden lock
That lets the trees and water enter
Until the Sunday sombre bell at dark

   Eating bread from a newspaper                                          
   Drinking water fro    m the chained cup 
 That the children filled with gravel 
 In the fountain basin where I sailed my ship 
 Slept at night in a dog kennel 
 But nobody chained  him up. 
  
 Like the park birds he came early 
 Like the water he sat down 
 And Mister they called Hey Mister 
 The truant boys from the town 
 Running when he had heard them clearly 
 On out of sound 
  
 Past lake and rocke    ry 
 Laughing when he shook his paper 
 Hunchbacked in mockery 
 Through the loud zoo of the willow groves 
 Dodging the park keeper 
 With his stick that picked up leaves. 
  
 And the old dog sleeper 
 Alone between nurses and swans 
 While the boys among willows 
 Made the tigers jump out of their eyes 
 To roar on the roc    kery stones 
 And the groves were blue with sailors 
  
 Made all day until  bell time 
 A woman figure without fault 
 Straight as a young elm 
 Straight and tall from his crooked bones 
 That she might stand in the night 
 After the locks and chains 
  
 All night in the unmade park 
 After the railings and shrubberies 
 The birds the grass the trees the lake 
 And the wild boys innocent as strawberries 
 Had followed the hunchback 
 To his kennel in the dark.     
    
    
    

Il gobbetto del parco

The hunchback in the park,
a lonely ladies
propped between trees and water
opening the padlock
that water and trees makes enter
until dark in the evening bell Sunday

ate bread from a newspaper,
drank water from the chained cup
that the children filled with gravel
in the basin of the fountain where my boat set sail
slept at night in a shelter
but no one chained.

Like the birds in the park early,
as water sedentary
hey Lord and the Lord called
schoolchildren wandering
running away when they had heard
out of earshot

Over the pond and artificial reefs,
humpbacks in jest, laughing
agitated when the newspaper, inside the zoo noisy
grove of willows, escaping
the warden of the park with his stick
which gathered the leaves.

And the good dog lonely
dozing between nurses and swans
while boys among willows
throwing tigers eyes
to roar on the rocks and thickets
were blue with sailors.

All day until the bell
a perfect figure of a woman,
tall and straight as a young elm,
his bones twisted created,
that could stay the night,
after the padlocks and chains,

all night in the park unmade
after the bars and patches of shrubs
birds the grass the trees, the pond
and boys innocent as strawberries
had followed the hunchback
to his kennel in the dark.

(Trad A. Marianne)

The nucelo of this poem appears in already, on March 9, 1932, in Notebooks ; is then applied and updated by Thomas in July 1941, and will be published for the first time in October of that year in "Life and letters to-day", XXXI, 50. Finally appears in the collection "Deaths and Entrances." The park is the Cwmdonkin Park in Swansea where Dylan played as a child and which is also the backdrop to a tale of Portrait of the artist as a young dog. Thomas describes it at length in Quite early one morning , volume which collects the conversations he held with the BBC.