They flared their nostrils and pranced and boasted to one another they were vastly excited, the horse being the only animal who has adopted our ceremonies as his own. Their manes were braided with streamers of silver, gold, and green. The horses wore no gear at all but a halter without bit. All the processions wound towards the north side of the city, where on the great water-meadow called the Green' Fields boys and girls, naked in the bright air, with mud-stained feet and ankles and long, lithe arms, exercised their restive horses before the race. Children dodged in and out, their high calls rising like the swallows' crossing flights, over the music and the singing. In other streets the music beat faster, a shimmering of gong and tambourine, and the people went dancing, the procession was a dance. Some were decorous: old people in long stiff robes of mauve and grey, grave master workmen, quiet, merry women carrying their babies and chatting as they walked.
In the streets between houses with red roofs and painted walls, between old moss-grown gardens and under avenues of trees, past great parks and public buildings, processions moved. The rigging of the boats in harbor sparkled with flags.
With a clamor of bells that set the swallows soaring, the Festival of Summer came to the city Omelas, bright-towered by the sea.
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