 | The Poems of John Clare |  |
312
SPRING'S MESSENGERS
Where slanting banks are always with the sunThe 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.
| The Poems of John Clare | |