Jan Neruda, Frogs Sat Around a Puddle

Frogs sat around a puddle 

And gazed at heavens high 

Frog teacher pounding into skulls 

The science of the sky. 

He spoke about the heavens 

Bright dots we see there burning 

And men watch them, 'astronomers' 

Like moles they dig for learning. 

When these moles start to map the stars 

The large becomes quite small 

What's twenty million miles to us 

They call one foot, that's all. 

So, as those moles did figure out 

(If you believe their plan) 

Neptune is thirty feet away 

Venus, less than one.

If we chopped up the Sun, he said 

(Awed frogs could only stare) 

We'd get three hundred thousand Earth's 

With still a few to spare 

The Sun helps us make use of time, 

It rolls round heaven's sphere 

And cuts a workday into shifts 

'Forever' to a year

What comets are is hard to say

A strange manifestation 

Though this is not a reason for 

Some idle speculation 

They are no evil sign, we hope 

No reason for great fright 

As in a story we got from 

Lubyenyetsky, great knight 

A comet there appeared, and when 

It rays were seen by all 

The cobblers in a tavern 

Began a shameful brawl 

He told them how the stars we see

So many, overhead

Are actually only suns

Some green, some blue, some red

And if we use the spectroscope

Their light tells, in addition;

Those distant stars and our Earth

Have the same composition 

He stopped. The frogs were overwhelmed. 

Their froggy eyeballs rolled.

'What more about this universe

Would you like to be told?'

'Just one more thing, please tell us sir'

A frog asked, 'Is it true?

Do creatures live there just like us 

Do frogs exist there too?'

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