I’ll snap pert fingers full in the thin face
Of thawing winter, and go seek a squill,
Where glitter in a small and sunburnt place
The fluted crocus and the daffodil!
(Two bellied hills curve smoothly there, and high,
And pines have scratched a white groove in the bended sky.)
Oh, come with eager baskets, and a song,
And seek decorous jonquils on a hill.
Your daffodils are arrogant and strong,
Your wind-swung phlox vociferously shrill;
And still, as birds that build in shadowed eaves,
Your drowsy violets slumber in their sleepy leaves.
Come down with baskets, and a blare of brass,
And seek disdaining jonquils if you will;
But I shall thrust aside the elfin grass,
And search among the blown blades for a squill.
Your crocus dazzles, and your shrill phlox swings,
But beauty’s glass gives back only the quiet things!
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