Ode to a hamster

THE LOG STAFF

May 29, 2008 at 3:56PM AKST

Samuel Werner, 15, recently e-mailed The Log with an unusual request. Could we publish his poem?

It was for an English class, he explained, and if he couldn’t find a market he would fail the assignment.

Being avid poetry readers and writers, of course we said yes. And we were instantly charmed. Written in the style of William Blake, the poem contains a strange yet catchy rhythm.

Werner is homeschooled and taking an online English class through the Potter School. He likes to read and especially likes to write, mostly fiction but poetry too. He just finished reading Shakespeare’s “Much Ado About Nothing,” which explains the “thous” and “goest.”

“I just kind of like Old English,” he said.

He wrote the poem in a couple of days, finished one draft and moved on to the next.

“I didn’t struggle much, it came pretty easily,” he said.

The hamster in the poem is modeled after his own hamster, Dynamite, that he said sometimes bites.

 
The Hamster

The hamster, the hamster, small and brown
Roaming ’round thy little town
Going crazy in the night,
Why doest thou put up such a fight?

And will thou be in such a rage,
If I put thee in thy cage?
Will thou, will thou try to escape?
Biting, knowing with much hate.

Is thy fur soft when thou art clean?
Or could anyone clean thee for thou art so mean!
I know thou art nice somewhere inside.
But then why doest thou try so hard to hide?

What kind of wrath? What kind of pain,
Does thou inflict with thy two fangs?
And what hyperness, and what fight,
Thou showest to us every night.

In the day thou settlest down,
But, only to sleep till sundown.
Then what surprise? Thou goest berserk!
When thou awakes to do thy work.

The hamster, the hamster, small and brown
Roaming ’round thy little town
Going crazy in the night,
Why doest thou put up such a fight?

— Samuel Werner