Original Size — Medium-Size
Each began to entreat him
To please not to eat him,
But the Ogre replied he’d be happy to meat him;
So he sharpened his knife
To take every life-
As he would have done had it not been for his wife,
Who showed him the supper she’d got—“Wasn’t that enough
If so, she was willing
To feed up for killing
The children, who now he could see were not fat enough.
Said the Ogre, “That’s true-
The supper will do.
We ’ll fatten the brats for a week—or p’rhaps two.
Meanwhile, since late hours make them tasteless and flabby,
Let them all go to bed—without waking the babby! '
Away they all sped
And hurried to bed,
For fear his opinion should change on that head.
But Hop o’ my Thumb, while his brothers were weeping,
Everywhere peeping,
Stealthily creeping,
Found seven young Ogrelings cozily sleeping
In the very next bed on a pillow of down,
And each of them wearing a little gold crown.
Cried Hop o’ my Thumb, on perceiving those bright caps,
“We’ve not been accustomed to sleep without nightcaps!”
So he took the gold circlets away from the others,
And put them instead on himself and his brothers.
By and bye
The Ogre so sly
(Who had made up his mind to a little boy-pie
For his breakfast) comes up in the dead of the night
With his very sharp knife, but without any light,
And so in the dark (as pitched as the ark)
Begins fumbling and feeling about for his mark,-
Comes to the bed,
But feels on Hop’s head
A crown, so goes off to his children instead,
And at once—for at slaughter you see he a dab is-
He cuts all the throats of his slumbering babbies.
(For which, since here, Reader, you coroner are, dict-
-Ate, “Sarve him right”—it’s the usual verdict.)
Hop o’ my Thumb
Heard all, but kept mum;
And as soon as the first streak of daylight was come,
And the dawn “breaking fast” in the heavens he saw
(The night was quite done, if the morning was raw),
Woke his brothers at once; and they all crept downstairs,
Climbed up to a window by aid of some chairs,
Got easily out through a large broken pane,
Jumped down on the grass, and were free once again!
Off went each urchin,
And left quite the lurch in
The Ogre, who still his bed slept like a church in.
And well may they run,
For as sure as a gun
The Ogre will wake and find out what he’s done,
And at once setting forth from his castle to catch ’em,
In spite of their start will be sure to outmatch’ ’em.
They may run like the wind—but the horrible brute s
Possessed of a pair of charmed Seven League Boots!
Yes! dread and fear!
Already they hear
The giant pursuing them—coming more near:-
They must try to conceal themselves closely, that’s clear.
They endeavour to save
Themselves in a cave:
The Ogre approaches, and even the brave
Little Hop o’ my Thumb feels a tremor of dread
When the giant, who suffers most frightful fatigues
From striding across at each step seven leagues,
Sits down on the rock that is over their head;
But it’s not long before
He’s beginning to snore,
And Hop o’ my Thumb plucks up courage once more.
“Now while he’s asleep
We must quietly creep
From our hiding, and bolt like a parcel of sheep! ‘’
Out scramble the boys
Without making a noise,
And while this way or that way each rapidly shoots off,
Hop o’ my Thumb takes the Seven League Boots off.