When the gong sounds ten in the morning
and I walk to school by our lane,
Everyday I meet the hawker crying,
"Bangles, crystal bangles!"
There is nothing to hurry him on,
there is no road he must take, no place he must
go to, no time when he must come home.
I wish I were a hawker, spending my
day in the road, crying, 'Bangles, crystal bangles!'.
When at four in the afternoon I come
back from the school,
I can see through the gate of that house
the gardener digging the ground.
He does what he likes with his spade,
he soils his clothes with dust, nobody takes
him to task if he gets baked in the sun or gets wet.
I wish I were a gardener digging away
at the garden with nobody to stop me from digging.
Just as it gets dark in the evening and
my mother sends me to bed,
I can see through my open window the
watchman walking up and down.
The lane is dark and lonely, and the
streetlamp stands like a giant with one red eye in its head.
The watchman swings his lantern and
walks with his shadow at his side, and
never once goes to bed in his life.
I wish I were a watchman walking the
streets all night, chasing the shadows with my lantern.