When the skies are low an' the earth is frozen, Ye'll be gay an' glad for the leddie ye've chosen, When ower the snow I go prinkin' an' prancin'   In my wee red slippers were made for dancin'. 

   It's better a leddie like Solomon's lily Than one that'll run like a Hielan' gillie A-linkin' it ower the leas, my laddie, In a raggedy kilt an' a belted plaidie! 

    AUGUST 

   Why should this Negro insolently stride Down the red noonday on such noiseless feet? Piled in his barrow, tawnier than wheat, Lie heaps of smoldering daisies, somber-eyed, Their copper petals shriveled up with pride, Hot with a superfluity of heat, Like a great brazier borne along the street By captive leopards, black and burning pied. 

   Are there no water-lilies, smooth as cream, With long stems dripping crystal? Are there none Like those white lilies, luminous and cool, Plucked from some hemlock-darkened northern stream By fair-haired swimmers, diving where the sun Scarce warms the surface of the deepest pool? 

    THE CROOKED STICK 

   First Traveler: What's that lying in the dust?   Second Traveler: A crooked stick. First Traveler: What's it worth, if you can trust To arithmetic? Second Traveler: Isn't this a riddle? First Traveler:                                   No, a trick. Second Traveler: It's worthless. Leave it where it lies. First Traveler: Wait; count ten; Rub a little dust upon your eyes; Now, look again. Second Traveler: Well, and what the devil is it, then? First Traveler: It's the sort of crooked stick that shepherds know. Second Traveler: Some one's loss! First Traveler: Bend it, and you make of it a bow. Break it, a cross. Second Traveler: But it's all grown over with moss! 

    ATAVISM 

   I always was afraid of Somes's Pond:   Not the little pond, by which the willow stands, Where laughing boys catch alewives in their hands In brown, bright shallows; but the one beyond. There, when the frost makes all the birches burn Yellow as cow-lilies, and the pale sky shines Like a polished shell between black spruce and pines, Some strange thing tracks us, turning where we turn. 

   You'll say I dream it, being the true daughter Of those who in old times endured this dread. Look! Where the lily-stems are showing red A silent paddle moves below the water, A 

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