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Artful Anticks

Chapter 8: The Deceitful Dormice.
By Oliver Herford
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About This Book

A collection of short, humorous poems and light fables that animate animals, children, and fairies to expose human foibles through playful rhyme and gentle irony. Pieces range from brief narrative verses to comic monologues and a short stage piece, typically concluding with a witty reversal or moral sting. Imagery moves between domestic detail and fanciful incident, and the poems vary in meter and length to keep tone brisk. Overall the work favors whimsical satire, clever wordplay, and anthropomorphic scenarios intended to amuse while lightly admonishing readers about pride, industry, and pretension.

The Deceitful Dormice.

A sleepy Dormouse who had passed
 The winter in her nest,
 Hearing that spring had come at last,
 Got up at once and dressed,
And, hastening from her downy house
 To hail the new spring day,
 She ran against another mouse
 That lived across the way.

The shock was such, at first the two
 Could scarcely speak for lack
 Of breath. Then each cried, “Oh, it’s you!!
 Why, when did you get back?”
“I’ve only just return’d, my dear,”
 The sleepy Dormouse said,
 “From Florida—the winters here,
 You know, affect my head.”
“Have you, indeed?” exclaimed her friend.
 “I’m glad to see you home.
 I, too, have just returned—I spend
 My winters down in Rome.”
With many pawshakes then, at last
 They parted—each to say,
 “I wonder where that creature passed
 The winter—anyway!”