Songs of the Common Day, and Ave!

An Ode for the Shelley Centenary

by Charles G.D. Roberts

 

MIDWINTER THAW

 
HOW shrink the snows upon this upland field,
     Under the dove-grey dome of brooding noon!
     They shrink with soft, reluctant shocks, and soon
In sad brown ranks the furrows lie revealed.
From radiant cisterns of the frost unsealed
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     Now wakes through all the air a watery rune—
     The babble of a million brooks atune,
In fairy conduits of blue ice concealed.

Noisy with crows, the wind-break on the hill
     Counts o'er its buds for summer. In the air

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Some shy foreteller prophesies with skill—
     Some voyaging ghost of bird, some effluence rare;
And the stall-wearied cattle dream their fill
     Of deep June pastures where the pools are fair.