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.