Putting Out the Lamp

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 to run away from the dark haunted place,

But soon stopped for looking backward

For some reasons I couldn't quite understand.

 

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 not know just that evening.

 

Perhaps that old lamp has been still kept on,

For I hear the same voice ask me tonight

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