Questions and Answers (Blackwood)

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Questions and Answers (1926)
by Algernon Blackwood
4134019Questions and Answers1926Algernon Blackwood

     No one quite tells me what I want to know;
       They answer me⁠—and that’s the end of that.
     For if I ask, “What makes a flower grow?”
       Their answer wouldn’t satisfy the cat!

     If I say: “Daddy, why should snow be white
       And fall in crystals, no one like the other?”
     He mumbles gruffly, while he strikes a light:
       “I’m busy, Tommy. Run and ask your Mother!”

     But Mother, when I ask why cuckoos cuck,
       Just stares at me and says: “God made them so,”
     And gives me such a wise and solemn look,
       Which means, of course, she really doesn’t know.

    And Nannie’s way is diff’rent altogether,
      For if I ask why winter days get colder,
    She gives a grunt and says: “Oh, it’s just weather.
      You’ll understand all that when you grow older!”


This work is in the public domain in the United States because it was published before January 1, 1929.


The longest-living author of this work died in 1951, so this work is in the public domain in countries and areas where the copyright term is the author's life plus 72 years or less. This work may be in the public domain in countries and areas with longer native copyright terms that apply the rule of the shorter term to foreign works.

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