“It Out-Herods Herod. Pray You, Avoid It.”

By Anthony Hecht 1923–2004 Anthony Hecht

Tonight my children hunch

Toward their Western, and are glad

As, with a Sunday punch,

The Good casts out the Bad.

And in their fairy tales

The warty giant and witch

Get sealed in doorless jails

And the match-girl strikes it rich.

I’ve made myself a drink.

The giant and witch are set

To bust out of the clink

When my children have gone to bed.

All frequencies are loud

With signals of despair;

In flash and morse they crowd

The rondure of the air.

For the wicked have grown strong,

Their numbers mock at death,

Their cow brings forth its young,

Their bull engendereth.

Their very fund of strength,

Satan, bestrides the globe;

He stalks its breadth and length

And finds out even Job.

Yet by quite other laws

My children make their case;

Half God, half Santa Claus,

But with my voice and face,

A hero comes to save

The poorman, beggarman, thief,

And make the world behave

And put an end to grief.

And that their sleep be sound

I say this childermas

Who could not, at one time,

Have saved them from the gas.

Source: Collected Earlier Poems (1990)

Biography

One of the leading voices of his generation, Anthony Hecht’s poetry is known for its masterful use of traditional forms and linguistic control. Extraordinarily erudite, Hecht’s verse often features allusions to French literature, Greek myth and tragedy, and English poets and poetry stretching from Wallace Stevens to John Donne. Hecht, who died in 2004, was often described as a “traditionalist.” George P. Elliott contended in the . . .

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