Why so cold thy palm, that slips
From me like the shy cold minnow?
The wood is warm, and smells of fern,
And below the meadows burn.
Hard to catch and hard to win, oh!
Why are those brown finger tips
Crinkled as with lines of water?"

Laughing while she featly footed,
With the herd-boy hasting after,
Sprang she on a trunk uprooted,
Clung she by a roping vine;
Leaped behind a birch, and told,
Still eluding, through its fine,
Mocking, slender, leafy laughter,
Why her finger tips were cold:

"I went down to tease the brook,
With her fishes, there below;
She comes dancing, thou must know,
And the bushes arch above her;
But the seeking sunbeams look,
Dodging through the wind-blown cover,
Find and kiss her into stars.
Silvery veins entwine and crook
Where a stone her tripping bars;
There be smooth, clear sweeps, and swirls
Bubbling up crisp drops like pearls.
There I lie, along the rocks
Thick with greenest slippery moss,