Putting Out the Lamp

 

In the dusk of early evening one day

I awakened from a belated nap,

And came to find nobody back home yet,

Only the wall lamp flickering away.

 

I, the child, quickly getting quailed,

Started running away from the dark haunted place,

But soon stopped for looking backward

For some reasons I couldn't quite grasp.

 

Probably it was the left-alone lamp,

Or the picture of coward in my mind,

That had caught my legs from behind,

And forced me to the wall, to stand tiptoed.

 

I tried to put it out, without success.

The oil? the wick? the flame itself? or the darkness?--

What in the world makes the cause of burning,

I could never know just that evening.

 

Perhaps that old lamp's been still kept on,

For I hear the same voice ask me tonight

If I'd try again to put the lamp out.