Sometimes I wing my way a bird;
Sometimes with beasts compelled to herd;
A fish I plunge beneath the deep;
Or in an insect’s form I creep.
Of late it was my fate to wear
The semblance of the timid hare;
And one cold morning in December
(The luckless day you may remember),
[p14]
When winter stern in icy chains
Had bound the desolated plains,