But These Things Also

But these things also are Spring's -On banks by the roadside the

Long-dead that is greyer

Than all the Winter it was;

The shell of a little snail

In the grass; chip of flint, and

Of chalk; and the small birds'

In splashes of purest white:

All the white things a man

For earliest

Who seeks through Winter's

Something to pay Winter's debts,

While the North blows, and starling

By chattering on and

Keep their spirits up in the mist,

And Spring's here,

Winter's not gone.