The Two Children

“Ah, little boy! I see

You have a wooden spade.

Into this sand you dig

So deep—for what?” I said.

“There’s more rich gold,” said he,

“Down under where I stand,

Than twenty elephants

Could move across the land.”

“Ah, little girl with wool!—

What are you making now?”

“Some stockings for a bird,

To keep his legs from snow.”

And there those children are,

So happy, small, and proud:

The boy that digs his grave,

The girl that knits her shroud.