Spring's Messengers

Where slanting banks are always with the sun

The daisy is in blossom even now;

And where warm patches by the hedges run

The cottager when coming home from plough

Brings home a cowslip root in flower to set.

Thus ere the Christmas goes the spring is met

Setting up little tents about the fields

In sheltered spots.— Primroses when they get

Behind the wood's old roots, where ivy shields

Their crimpled, curdled leaves, will shine and hide.

Cart ruts and horses’ footings scarcely yield

A slur for boys, just crizzled and that's all.

Frost shoots his needles by the small dyke side,

And snow in scarce a feather's seen to fall.