Red occurs 25 times (11% of the total of colour terms) in 21 poems (23% of the corpus). The primary association of red is with blood. It is described in the literature as empowering, activating and strong, being linked with strength, vigour, energy, activity and dynamism. It is a metaphor for a number of affective states, some of which, such as love, are positive while others, for example hate, anger and embarrassment, are negative. There are also associations with sexual themes. Blue occurs 12 times (5% of total colour term occurrences) in 11 poems (12% of the total). A survey covering 10 languages across four continents showed that blue was by a considerable margin people’s favourite colour. Blue has both strongly positive and strongly negative associations. The positive ones are linked with the association with the colour of the sky on a bright day. The colour literature points to calmness, tranquillity, restfulness, harmony, sympathy, coolness and security as major associations. On the negative side we have sadness, melancholy and depression. Yellow appears five times (2% of the total of colour words), in just two poems (2% of the total). In all cases the entity described is sand. Yellow has both positive and negative connotations. In a positive way it is linked with the sun, joy, pleasure, amusement, amiability and optimism; its negative associations include envy, greed, jealousy and cowardice.