Finch & Frog

Wilhelm Busch 1832 (Wiedensahl) – 1908 (German Empire)



The finch trills in the apple tree
His: Tiriliree!
A frog climbs slowly up to him,
Up to the treetop's leafy rim
And puffs right up and croaks: "Hallooo,
Ol' chum: see, I c'n do it too!"

And as the bird his song of spring
So sweetly to the world doth sing,
The frog chimes in with sassy tones
And interjects his bassy drones.

The finch exclaims: "O Joy, hurray!
I'll fly away!"
And springs into the azure sky.

"Hah!" cries the frog, "Well so kin I!"
He makes a most ungainly bound
And splats onto the bare hard ground.
He's pancake flat, and that's no joke:
He's croaked his very final croak.

If someone climbs laboriously
Into the branches of a tree
And thinks himself a bird to be:
Wrong is he.

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Submitted on May 13, 2011

Modified on April 17, 2023

42 sec read
112

Quick analysis:

Scheme AABBXX CCDD EEF FGGHH AAAA
Closest metre Iambic tetrameter
Characters 683
Words 139
Stanzas 5
Stanza Lengths 6, 4, 3, 5, 4

Wilhelm Busch

Heinrich Christian Wilhelm Busch was a German humorist, poet, illustrator and painter. He published comic illustrated cautionary tales from 1859, achieving his most notable works in the 1870s. Busch's illustrations used wood engraving, and later, zincography. Busch drew on contemporary parochial and city life, satirizing Catholicism, Philistinism, strict religious morality and bigotry. His comic text was colourful and entertaining, using onomatopoeia, neologisms and other figures of speech, and led to some work being banned by the authorities. Busch was influential in both poetry and illustration, and became a source for future generations of comic artists. The Katzenjammer Kids was inspired by Busch's Max and Moritz, one of a number of imitations produced in Germany and the United States. The Wilhelm Busch Prize and the Wilhelm Busch Museum help maintain his legacy. His 175th anniversary in 2007 was celebrated throughout Germany. Busch remains one of the most influential poets and artists in Western Europe. more…

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