Blank earth-baldness clothes itself afresh, And breaks into the crocus-purple hour.
Spring's an expansive time: yet I don't trust March with its peck of dust, Nor April with its rainbow-crowned brief showers, Nor even May, whose flowers One frost may wither through the sunless hours.
If it does not freeze on the tenth of March a fertile year may be expected.
In March is good graffing, the skilful do know, So long as the wind in the east do not blow: From moon being changed, till past be the prime, For graffing and cropping is very good time.
In March and in April, from morning to night, In sowing and setting good huswives delight: To have in a garden or other like plot, To trim up their house, and to furnish their pot.
O Love-star of the unbeloved March, When cold and shrill, Forth flows beneath a low dim-lighted arch The wind that beats sharp crag and barren hill, And keeps unfilmed the lately torpid rill!
Herald and harbinger! with thee Begins the year's great jubilee! Of her solemnities sublime (A sacristan whose gusty taper Flashes through earliest morning vapour) Thou ring'st dark nocturns and dim prime. Birds that have yet no heart for song Gain strength with thee to twitter, And, warm at last, where hollies throng, The mirror'd sunbeams glitter.
The softest turf of English green, With sloping walks and trees between, And then a bed of flowers half-seen.
Here daffodils in early Spring And violets their off'rings bring, And sweetest birds their hymns outsing.
When country roads begin to thaw In mottled spots of damp and dust, And fences by the margin draw Along the frozen crust Their graphic silhouettes, I say, The Spring is coming round this way.
When suddenly some shadow bird Goes wavering beneath the gaze, And through the hedge the moan is heard Of kine that fain would graze In grasses new, I smile and say, The Spring is coming round this way.
Oh, what a dawn of day! How the March sun feels like May! All is blue again After last night's rain.
No summer flowers are half so sweet As those of early Spring.
Under the furze is hunger and cold, Under the broom is silver and gold.
When wintry weather's all a-done, An' brooks do sparkle in the zun, An' naisy-builden rooks do vlee Wi' sticks toward their elem tree; When birds do zing, an' we can zee Upon the bough the buds o' spring-- Then I'm as happy as a king, A'vield wi' health an' sunshine.