It is not an incidental play-motif that the Zuñi children sing in the _Hymn to the Sun_, “Listen, just listen,” as they hold spiral shells to their ears. Mr. Troyer wrote: “The primary aim seems to be to develop early in life, by mechanical aids, the perception of solar vibration, which later in life becomes a natural gift.” A critic whose hearing is less sensitive than that of the Red Man will remain wholly unaware of many delicate nuances. These subtle changes in Indian lyrics can scarcely be said to follow metrical laws, yet cannot be thought accidental. The shifting influence of pause is negligible. There is slight use of quantity except in vocalic and consonantal interplay, and that is most elusive. Subtleties of mood and thought in the line may turn swiftly from the flowing movement to the staccato with corresponding shift in measure. A distinct influence appears in the cluster-rhythms of holophrastic compounds. This element becomes especially noticeable when the singer pauses to dictate the words of his song. The crest words or syllables in a line, particularly in the recessional movement and in descending pitch, may also shift the metrical emphasis. In the Zuñi song _Lover’s Wooing_, the crest words are most distinct: blanket, maiden, awaiting, alone, walk, come. The rhythm bends to them. To one who has listened to countless Indian songs, there remains another logical influence over the exquisite variations of these lyrics—mimesis of elements of the natural world. The rhythms of nature float through the rhythms of Indian verse. The winds are imitated in the oral rendition of many poems: the minor key, the little rushes of wind, the full swell of sound, the gradual dying away. Curiously enough, the Plains tribes call their songs in recollection of the absent “wind songs,” in true appreciation of their minor key. The steady patter or downfall of rain sings a welcome rhythm to the Indian of the plains and of the southwest. There is an insistence in the rhythm of many rain-songs that is mimetic, not only in the total effect of rain but distinctly so in the character of metrical units. “I like those songs,” an old man once said to me quite simply, his face quickened with a smile. His songs had just measured the summer rain, then dropped away through gliding syllables to a whispering echo—the wind and the rain! It is the natural, joyous response of the Red Man to his surroundings that catches up these free rhythms of the out-door world and shapes his gesture and thought in measure with them in his improvisations. In the subtlety of its rhythms, Indian lyric poetry cannot detach itself from these external influences; for no race of the modern world lives more intimately with nature, sensing its most delicate expressions, its most exquisite sounds and movements.