Old Sol arose and said: “I’d have you learn” (So grieved his rage had scarce begun to burn) “There’s still a Pole to visit; and I’ll turn To the North! Your Pole I spurn!” But as he walked and thought upon his wrong, His rage waxed hotter, his resolve more strong. “The next who thwarts me won’t be happy long! Just let him try!—I think he’ll change his song!” So striding northward, with his face ablaze, He overtook a Crab, who’d paused to gaze Where stood the Pole. His courteous amaze Sol’s wrath allays. Now, even as the Goat was set to guard The Southern Pole, and visitors retard, The task of Mr. Crab was just as hard: The North he barred. But what’s the use of knock-down argument, When courtesy will answer your intent? If with a little tact ’tis wisely blent. Why break a will, that may as well be _bent_? “Shall we not walk together, sir?” he said. Sol—still determined, though his rage was fled— Agreed, if to the Pole his friend’s path led. Waving his claw, the Crab said: “Straight ahead!” [Illustration: “SHALL WE NOT WALK TOGETHER, SIR?” ] But wily Mr. Crab did not confess (And Sol was far too much engrossed to guess, So pleasant and straightforward his address), He _backward walked_,—like all crabs—none the less! They strolled together down the road awhile With jest and chat, that might the way beguile; Then bade adieu. And then Sol saw the wile That turned him from his purpose with a smile! He had not noticed that they backward walked, Because the Crab so pleasantly had talked.— Thus, twice in his ambition was he balked: The Goat had felled him—and the Crab had mocked! Since then, he’s fixed a limit for his stroll; He never tries to go around the Pole. Deceit and rudeness worry Mr. Sol Past his control! “That is the poetry,” said the Princess, “and _this_ is very truly true: Old Sol makes a visit and spends a little while every year in each of the Houses of the Zodiac. But when he comes to the farthest North—which is the Crab—in the Summer, he turns back and goes South until he comes to the Goat’s House, which is the farthest South, in the Winter; then he turns and comes back, and so forever and always.” “Won’t they let him go?” asked the Kitten. “He doesn’t give them a chance to prevent. Now he knows it’s a Rule of the Sky he obeys it even before he comes to the place they say he mustn’t pass.” “But they might have told him politely,” said Phyllisy. “It means something behind, doesn’t it, Dearie?—just plainly true without anything around it?”