Song for a Small Boy Who Herds Goats

--Yvor Winters

Sweeter than rough hair

On earth there is none,

Rough as the wind

And brown as the sun.

I toss high my short arms

Brown as the sun;

I creep on the moutains

And never am done.

Sharp-hoofed, hard-eyed,

Trample on the sun! --

Sharp ears, stiff as wind,

Point the way to run!

Who on the brown earth

Knows himself one?

Life is in lichens

That sleep as they run.