BOYS & SPRING
1
To see the Arum early shoot
Its cone curled leaves of green
About the white green mossy root
Where violet buds are seen
2
The little round hole in the roots
Looks battered hard and round
The mice come out to chimble fruits
And take hips under ground
3
The husks of hips and awes lie round
All chimbled seed and skin
There noses now peep from the ground
And there the tails bob in
4
The nettles yellow roots are bare
Where sun shine looks about
Where thin and pricked the hedges are
The leaves are sprouting out
5
The violets blossom where they dwell
The childrens fingers smart
They kiss the place to make it well
And all is joy of heart
6
There's something yet in childhoods ways
On which I love to dwell
And oft I hunt in springs first days
The painted pooty shell
7
Children e're they go to school
Hunt hedges and thorn roots
They're badgers by the sedgy pool
And b[u]y the [painted poots]
8
And then they crush them nib to nib
Agen the meadow brig
And don't their little tongues run glib
At running such a rig
9
They call them cocks and so they fight
A little ‘cocking day’
The hardest breaks the whole outright
As heroe of the day
