Classic Poem

Puffing like smoke over the wood
The old-man's-beard is stained with blood,
And strewn along the pathway lie
Like small open sarcophagi
The hazel-nuts broken in halves
By squirrels, and the old jay laughs.

Now summer's flowers are winter's weeds,
I think of all the sleeping seeds;
Winds were their robins and by night
Frosts glue their leafy cover tight;
Snow may shake down its dizzy feathers,
They will sleep safely through all weathers.

Then with spring's grip, ‘Awake, awake!’
The bodies of these seeds shall break
And lo, a wood-spurge or wood-sorrel
Or nettle in hot angry quarrel
Or pale primrose, or it may be
The twin leaves of young oak-tree.