Valuable

(after reading two paragraphs in a newspaper.)

by Stevie Smith

All these illegitimate babies…

Oh girls, girls,

Silly little cheap things,

Why do you not put some value on yourselves,

Learn to say, No?

Did nobody teach you?

Nobody teaches anybody to say No nowadays,

People should teach people to say No.

Oh poor panther,

Oh you poor black animal,

At large for a few moments in a school for young children in Paris,

Now in your cage again,

How your great eyes bulge with bewilderment,

There is something there that accuses us,

In your angry and innocent eyes,

Something that says:

I am too valuable to be kept in a cage.

Oh these illegitimate babies!

Oh girls, girls,

Silly little valuable things,

You should have said, No, I am valuable,

And again, It is because I am valuable

I say, No.

Nobody teaches anybody they are valuable nowadays.

Girls, you are valuable,

And you, Panther, you are valuable,

But the girls say: I shall be alone

If I say ‘I am valuable’ and other people do not say it of me,

I shall be alone, there is no comfort there.

No, it is not comforting but it is valuable,

And if everybody says it in the end

It will be comforting. And for the panther too,

If everybody says he is valuable

It will be comforting for him.