Now Forth to Meadow by Edna St. Vincent Millay

Now forth to meadow as the farmer goes

With shining buckets to the milking-ground, / He meets the black ant hurrying from his mound

To milk the aphis pastured on the rose; But no good-morrow, as you might suppose, / No nod of greeting, no perfunctory sound

Passes between them; no occasion's found

For gossip as to how the fodder grows. In chilly autumn on the hardening road

They meet again, driving their flocks to stall, / Two herdsmen, each with winter for a goad;

They meet and pass, and never a word at all

Gives one to t'other. On the quaint abode

Of each, the evening and the first snow fall.