"Toward evening a small breeze came up and began blowing the minutes away until it was time to go. / As they left they passed once again the prisons where the wolves lay sentenced, though now their fur had been damped by winter's first rain. Where still the summer foxes paced made even more restless by the changeful weather. / And still the obedient elephant went bearing children on its back, swinging its trunk like an orchestra leader conducting an old-fashioned waltz. / Where the white-maned merry-go-round stallions raced, one a nose ahead, then the other, then coasted when the music-box stopped. / The homesick lion roared for home. The iron-feathered owl waited only for night to wing soundlessly into people's dreams and be back in his tree by morning. / [The brutal monkey]'s girlfriend, trapped out on a limb too fragile for him to follow, whimpered between fear of falling and fear of [him]. / In the haysmelling dark the quick gazelle tiptoed, rehearsing forever some animal's ballet in which she was sure to be the leading lady. / Deep in the primeval stone the ancient bear had curled, and this time would not be seduced outside for peanuts or people, Devil or daughter. / So they turned back at last to those streets whereon the wildest beast of all roamed free."