Thief That Steals From Another Thief Poem by Rod M.Peters
Thief That Steals From Another Thief
I bought an old book of poems
By Walter de la Mare
And thought it a great thing
With my beloved to share,
But my joy proved quite short-lived
For leafing through pages all yellow
I saw an old library sticker that read
‘Camden College Library'. Hello!
Pangs of conscience then arose
Out of deriving careless pleasure
From ill-gotten goods, for into that very category
Now fell my precious little treasure.
As I wondered how best to alert
The poor old aggrieved Camden lot
Pilfered by a crooked reseller,
(May he in the lowest hell rot!)
I saw faint markings underneath,
That the sticker had all but concealed,
And pulling the latter out, an even older stamping
There was suddenly revealed:
‘P. Harvey Library, Notre Dame'.
So it was really poor P. Harvey now
pilfered by the greedy Camden lot,
Pilfered by crooked reseller. What a blow!
A world awash with malefactors
Competing to outdo one another!
And no thought that 'thief that steals
From another thief' would smother
My certitude that both should get
A long stretching session on the rack
With a heavy ball and chain to follow,
And I, well, all my money back.
Stanza 7: I THINK I'd change 'about' to 'that'. What a tangled web I've spun! Stanza 8: Ok, maybe 'money back' if you return to.....whom? ? ? I'd say 'on', not 'in', the rack.
Yeah, actually good suggestions: will do. Do I really hope to get my money back by returning to 'crooked reseller'? Not really.
(cont.) ...maybe adding 'from' after 'pilfered' is a solution. // AND again, in Stanza 6, It sounds to me as though you are defining 'pilfer' as '(to be) stolen from'. rather than as 'to steal'.
Pilfered 'by' refers to the culprit, whereas pilfered 'from' refers to the victim. So the original owner's book would appear to have indeed been pilfered "by" that infamous greedy Camden lot! , though I could be wrong.
Stanza 4: If I understand 'lot', I say there are words missing to make this stanza grammatically correct. Hmmm? : )
'Lot' in this context is, admittedly, an UK slang meaning 'a group of people'; e.g.: What a sorry lot!
Walter de la Mare, born on April 25,1873 in London, is considered one of modern literature's chief exemplars of the romantic imagination.'
This poem has not been translated into any other language yet.
I would like to translate this poem
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4/27/2024 9:12:18 PM # 1.0.0.1119
Why not use the alleged 'torture' by ants? I heard that some Native Americans/American Indians [and maybe also some 'white men'] would bury a prisoner in sand/dirt except for their face and drip ant-luring honey on the poor person's face. Yikes! !