On the snow-covered ground;
Not a flower could he see,
Not a leaf on a tree:
“Oh, what will come,” says the cricket, “of me?”
At last by starvation and famine made bold,
All dripping with wet and all trembling with cold,
Away he set off to a miserly ant,
To see if, to keep him alive he would grant
Him a shelter from rain:
A mouthful of grain