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Home  »  The World’s Best Poetry  »  “Max and Maurice”: Last Trick

Bliss Carman, et al., eds. The World’s Best Poetry. 1904.

Poems of Home: III. Fun for Little Folk

“Max and Maurice”: Last Trick

Wilhelm Busch (1832–1908)

Translated by Charles Timothy Brooks

MAX and Maurice! I grow sick,

When I think on your last trick.

Why must these two scalawags

Cut those gashes in the bags?

See! the farmer on his back

Carries corn off in a sack.

Scarce has he begun to travel,

When the corn runs out like gravel.

All at once he stops and cries:

“Darn it! I see where it lies!”

Ha! with what delighted eyes

Max and Maurice he espies.

Rabs! he opens wide his sack,

Shoves the rogues in—Hukepack!

It grows warm with Max and Maurice,

For to mill the farmer hurries,

“Master miller! Hallo, man!

Grind me that as quick as you can!”

“In with ’em!” Each wretched flopper

Headlong goes into the hopper.

As the farmer turns his back, he

Hears the mill go “creaky! cracky!”

Here you see the bits post mortem,

Just as Fate was pleased to sort ’em.

Master Miller’s ducks with speed

Gobbled up the coarse-grained feed.