And let me down without breaking my neck:
No effort at all: I was absent-minded:
Don't even know now what the air or the wind did.
ROBIN
He takes a lot of staccato steps, stops—
Like a busy toe-dancer with dizzy tops
That never cease spinning, twinkling a minute
Until they come to the end of what's in it.
He runs on a line like a tight-rope walker—
Tries not to look scared—nor to answer a talker.
He might be as deaf as a man who surveys
Two spots with a string for the high wire ways.
No matter how fast he may go or stop dead—
He holds his head still—an oblivious head
But just down below, they twist and they squirm—
Like a terrified crowd or an angle worm.
CITY CHAP
Who's that dusty stranger?—What's he doing here?—
That city-bred bird with the ill-bred leer?—
Perching on branches like telegraph wires?—
Chirping his slang above passionate fires?—
Poking his head about, twitching his tail?—
Getting drunk in our pools as though they were ale?—
Never accepting, but stealing our rations?—
Acting toward us as he would to relations?—
Who asked him hither, what led him this way?—
With his critical carping, his mockery, eh?—
And worse than all these, he's a jerky reminder
Of winters, towns, and of people no kinder.
