On Clothes

Some of you say, “It is the north wind

who has woven the clothes we wear.”

And I say, Ay, it was the north wind,

But shame was his loom, and the soften-

ing of the sinews was his thread.

And when his work was done he laughed

in the forest.

Forget not that modesty is for a shield

against the eye of the unclean.

And when the unclean shall be no more,

what were modesty but a fetter and a fouling

of the mind?

And forget not that the earth delights to

feel your bare feet and the winds long to

play with your hair.