AS February yields to March, here is a vivid picture of the turning year from the Northamptonshire nature poet John Clare (1793-1864).
from THE SHEPHERD’S CALENDAR: FEBRUARY
The snow has left the cottage top;
The thatch-moss grows in brighter green;
And eaves in quick succession drop,
Where grinning icicles have been,
Pit-patting with a pleasant noise
In tubs set by the cottage-door;
While ducks and geese, with happy joys,
Plunge in the yard-pond brimming o’er.
The barking dogs, by lane or wood,
Drive sheep afield from foddering ground;
And Echo, in her Summer mood,
Briskly mocks the cheering sound.
The flocks, as from a prison broke,
Shake their wet fleeces in the sun,
While, following fast, a misty smoke
Reeks from the moist grass as they run.
The hedgehog, from his hollow root,
Sees the wood-moss clear of snow,
And hunts the hedge for fallen fruit –
Crab, hip, and winter-bitten sloe;
But often checked by sudden fears,
As shepherd-dog his haunt espies,
He rolls up in a ball of spears,
And all his barking rage defies.
The small birds think their wants are o’er,
To see the snow-hills fret again,
And, from the barn’s chaff-litter’d door,
Betake them to the greening plain.
The woodman’s robin startles coy,
Nor longer to his elbow comes,
To peck, with hunger’s eager joy
’Mong mossy stulps the litter’d crumbs.
stulps=tree stumps
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