Thaw

Downhill I came, hungry, and yet not starved; Cold, yet had heat within me that was Against the North wind; tired, yet so that Had seemed the sweetest thing under a roof.

There they stand, on their ends, the fifty fag That once were underwood of hazel and In Jenny Pink's copse. Now, by the

The skylarks are far behind that sang over the down; I can hear no more those suburb nightingales; Thrushes and blackbirds sing in the gardens of the In vain: the noise of man, beast, and machine prevails.

Tall nettles cover up, as they have done These many springs, the rusty harrow, the plough Long worn out, and the roller made of stone: Only the elm butt tops the nettles now. This corner of the farmyard I like most: As well as any…

Running along a bank, a parapet That saves from the precipitous wood below The level road, there is a path. It serves Children for looking down the long smooth steep, Between the legs of beech and yew, to where A fallen tree checks the…

In the gloom of whiteness, In the great silence of snow, A child was And bitterly saying:`Oh,

Thinking of her had saddened me at first, Until I saw the sun on the celandines Redoubled, and she stood up like a flame, A living thing, not what before I nursed,

She had a name among the children; But no one loved though someone Her, locked her out of doors at And had her kittens duly drowned.