228
what's o'clock
PRIMAVERA
Spring has arrived.
It is no use your telling me to look at the calendar,
And saying that it is five good days to the twenty-first of March.
Is the year bound to obey the almanac-makers?
O model of all egregious pedants!
Would you shackle Spring to times and seasons,
And catch her back by her long green skirt
Till the moment you have planned for her?
She has stolen a march this year, for certain.
To-day, at sunrise, I saw a white-breasted nut-hatch
Running up the branch of the oak-tree
That was so broken by the ice-storm last December,
And in the garden a pheasant was picking grains
Out of the manure covering the garden-beds.
It is no use your telling me to look at the calendar,
And saying that it is five good days to the twenty-first of March.
Is the year bound to obey the almanac-makers?
O model of all egregious pedants!
Would you shackle Spring to times and seasons,
And catch her back by her long green skirt
Till the moment you have planned for her?
She has stolen a march this year, for certain.
To-day, at sunrise, I saw a white-breasted nut-hatch
Running up the branch of the oak-tree
That was so broken by the ice-storm last December,
And in the garden a pheasant was picking grains
Out of the manure covering the garden-beds.
