This is no cap gun for little boys

The maker’s aim, the bullet-thought, the noise of time
trued to a line:
This is no cap gun for little boys.

It’s not the inky reams, nor the tightest rhymes:
What rescues is the news that burns the mind.

— Osip Mandelstam,
from “Memories of Andrey Bely”
(January 10-11, 1934)

One thought on “This is no cap gun for little boys

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