The Broken Vase by Victor Hugo
Heavens! all China's on the ground, in pieces!
This vase-covered with birds, flowers, fruit, caprices
Of the ideal that come from dim blue dreams-
Pale-hued and tender like reflected streams,
This unique vase, impossible, strange, fey,
Preserving moonlight in the blaze of day,
Which seemed alive, lit by an aureole,
Almost a monster, or perhaps a soul-
Mariette, when she did the bedroom, dashed
Her elbow at it blindly--and it's smashed!
A lovely vase! a globe of reveries,
Where golden oxen browsed the faience leas.
I loved the thing; I bought it at the quays;
At times I showed our mites its fairylands.
'Here's a yak; there's a monkey with four hands;
This one is a DD, or else an ass,
And if he won't say hee-haw, he'll say mass;
That, that's a bonze or a rabbi, very staunch;
He must be learned, judging from his paunch.
That's Screech-Owl in his hollow over there,
King in his palace, Tiger in his lair,
And Devil in his hell--ugliness everywhere!'
Monsters are fun; children are keen to sight them;
Wondrous things that are beasts always delight them.
In short, I dearly loved that vase. It's dead.
In I rushed, furious, fierce; and, roaring, said:
'So! who did that?' Scene set for a disaster!
Then, seeing Mariette in terror--master
Itching to chide, maid dreading to be chid-
With an angelic look, Jeanne said: 'I did.'