All day long through its narrow street

Children play in the dust and heat,

Naked of limb and dark of face,

Lithe as fawns in their careless grace,

Chattering shrill in a half-caste speech

Far from the Spanish the school rooms teach.

All day long by the doorways small

Cut through the thick adobe wall,

Or in the narrow belts of shade

Here and there by the flat roofs made,