To mark World Poetry Day, here’s Edward Thomas writing about the transition from Winter to Spring
But these things also are Spring’s
But these things also are Spring’s –
On banks by the roadside the grass
Long-dead that is greyer now
Than all the Winter it was;
The shell of a little snail bleached
In the grass; chip of flint, and mite
Of chalk; and the small birds’ dung
In splashes of purest white:
All the white things a man mistakes
For earliest violets
Who seeks through Winter’s ruins
Something to pay Winter’s debts,
While the North blows, and starling flocks
By chattering on and on
Keep their spirits up in the mist,
And Spring’s here, Winter’s not gone
Thomas wrote this in March 2015 about what can be a confusing time of the year as we have seen once again in 2018. This was a few months before he enlisted in the Artist’s Rifles to fight in the First World War.