Stephen Spender - My Parents lyrics

[Stanza 1] My parents kept me from children who were rough Who threw words like stones and wore torn clothes Their thighs shown through rags. They ran in the street And climbed cliffs and stripped by the country streams. [Stanza 2] I feared more than tigers their muscles like iron Their jerking hands and their knees tight on my arms I feared the salt coarse pointing of those boys Who copied my lisp behind me on the road. [Stanza 3] They were lithe, they sprang out behind hedges Like dogs to bark at my world. They threw mud While I looked the other way, pretending to smile I longed to forgive them but they never smiled.