The Sad Boy - Laura Riding

Thursday poetic musings #37

The best and worst facet of the internet is probably making nearly everything readily available.

In a sea of useless or false information, we are occasionally visited by a few gems of knowledge and art.

Last week I stumbled across a post about Laura Riding and was graced with the following poem:

The Sad Boy

Ay, his mother was a mad one
And his father was a bad one:
The two begot this sad one.

Alas for the single boot
The Sad Boy pulled out of the rank green pond,
Fishing for happiness
On the gloomy advice
Of a professional lover of small boys.

Pity the lucky Sad Boy
With but a single happy boot
And an extra foot
With no boot for it.

This was how the terrible hopping began
That wore the Sad Boy down
To a single foot
And started the great fright in the province
Where the Sad Boy became half of himself.

Wherever he went thumping and hopping,
Pounding a whole earth into a half-heaven,
Things split all around
Into a left side for the left magic,
Into no side for the missing right boot.

Mercy be to the Sad Boy,
Mercy be to the melancholy folk
On the Sad Boy’s right.

It was not for clumsiness
He lost the left boot
And the knowledge of his left side,
But because one awful Sunday
This dear boy dislimbed
Went back to the old pond
To fish up the other boot
And was quickly (being too light for his line)
Fished in.

Gracious how he kicks now—
And the almost-ripples show
Where the Sad Boy went in
And his mad mother
And his bad father after him.

Laura Riding (1901—1991), also known as Laura Riding Gottschalk and Laura (Riding) Jackson, was an American poet, critic, novelist, essayist and short story writer.

She is mostly remembered by her poems, even though she gave up on poetry saying it is incompatible with truth.

I must disagree with her.