The rustle of the leaves, who borrow of the riffle’s song
From me at summer-tide. And then
I pipe unto the sands, who dance and creep
Before me in the path. I blow the dead
And lifeless earth to dancing, tingling life,
And slap thee to awake at morn.
Whiff, sayeth the wind.
There is a vivacity in this odd conceit that in itself brings a smile, which is likely to broaden at the irony in the suggestion of the wind cutting itself on the crusted gilt of a king’s mantle. Equally spirited in movement, but vastly different in character, is the one which follows:
Hi-ho, alack-a-day, whither going?
Art dawdling time away adown the primrose path