Very interesting: any idea who the translator was? I have a version translated by R.F.C.Hull, who has translated many (perhaps all?) of Morgenstern's poems, which, whilst essentially the same, is very different in approach, as follows:

The Fence

There was a fence with spaces you
Could look through if you wanted to.

An architect who saw this thing
Stood there one summer evening,

Took out the spaces with great care
And built a castle in the air.

The fence was utterly dumbfounded:
Each post stood with nothing round it.

A sight most terrible to see.
(They charged it with indecency.)

The architect then ran away
To Afric- or Americay.

Christian Morgenstern
[trans. R.F.C.Hull]


Interesting different approaches


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