“You mean miles from that Mormon settlement? Look here, you treat your guide with due respect If you don’t want to spend the night outdoors. I vow we must be near the place from where The two converging slides, the avalanches, On Marshall, look like donkey’s ears. We may as well see that and save the day.” “Don’t donkey’s ears suggest we shake our own?” “For God’s sake, aren’t you fond of viewing nature? You don’t like nature. All you like is books. What signify a donkey’s ears and bottle, However natural? Give you your books! Well then, right here is where I show you books. Come straight down off this mountain just as fast As we can fall and keep a-bouncing on our feet. It’s hell for knees unless done hell-for-leather.” “Be ready,” I thought, “for almost anything.” We struck a road I didn’t recognize, But welcomed for the chance to lave my shoes In dust once more. We followed this a mile, Perhaps, to where it ended at a house I didn’t know was there. It was the kind To bring me to for broad-board panelling. I never saw so good a house deserted. “Excuse me if I ask you in a window That happens to be broken,” Davis said. “The outside doors as yet have held against us. I want to introduce you to the people Who used to live here. They were Robinsons. You must have heard of Clara Robinson, The poetess who wrote the book of verses And had it published. It was all about The posies on her inner window sill, And the birds on her outer window sill, And how she tended both, or had them tended: She never tended anything herself. She was ‘shut in’ for life. She lived her whole Life long in bed, and wrote her things in bed. I’ll show you how she had her sills extended To entertain the birds and hold the flowers. Our business first’s up attic with her books.”