LADY, I cannot act, though I admire God’s great chameleons, Booth-Barret men. But when the trees are green, my thoughts may be October-red. December comes again And snowy Christmas there within my breast Though I be walking in the August dust. Often my lone contrary sword is bright When every other soldier’s sword is rust. Sometimes, while churchly friends go up to God On wings of prayer to altars of delight I walk and talk with Satan, call him friend, And greet the imps with converse most polite. When hunger nips me, then at once I knock At the near farmer’s door and ask for bread. I must, when I have wrought a curious song Pin down some stranger till the thing is read. When weeds choke up within, then look to me To show the world the manners of a weed. I cannot change my cloak except my heart Has changed and set the fashion for the deed. When love betrays me I go forth to tell The first kind gossip that too-patent fact. I cannot pose at hunger, love or shame. It plagues me not to say: “I cannot act.” I only mourn that this unharnessed _me_ Walks with the devil far too much each day. I would be chained to angel-kings of fire. And whipped and driven up the heavenly way. THE HOUSE OF THE LOOM A Story of Seven Aristocrats and a Soap-Kettle. WITH no sorrow in my heart, with no money in my pocket, with no baggage but a lunch, the most dazzling feature of which was a piece of gingerbread, I walked away from a wind-swept North Carolina village, one afternoon, over the mountain ridges toward Lake Toxaway. I turned to the right once too often, and climbed Mount Whiteside. There was a drop of millions of miles, and a Lilliputian valley below like a landscape by Charlotte B. Coman. I heard some days later that once a man tied a dog to an umbrella and threw him over. Dog landed safely, barking still. Dog was able to eat, walk, and wag as before. But the fate of the master was horrible. Dog never spoke to him again. Having no umbrella, I retraced my way. I stepped into the highway that circumscribes the tremendous amphitheatre of Cashier’s Valley. I met not a soul till eight o’clock that night. The mountain laurel, the sardis bloom, the violet, and the apple blossom made glad the margins of the splendidly built road; and, as long as the gingerbread lasted, I looked upon these things in a sort of sophisticated wonder. This was because the gingerbread was given me by a civilized man, to whom John Collier had written for me a letter of introduction: Mr. Thomas G. Harbison, Botanical Collector; American tree seeds a specialty.