Ethelwyn Wetherald (1857–1940)

WHEN spring has burned

The ragged robe of winter, stitch by stitch,

And deftly turned

To moving melody the wayside ditch,

The pale-green pasture field behind the bars

Is goldened o’er with dandelion stars.

When summer keeps

Quick pace with sinewy, white-shirted arms,

And daily steeps

In sunny splendour all her spreading farms,

The pasture field is flooded foamy white

With daisy faces looking at the light.

When autumn lays

Her golden wealth upon the forest floor,

And all the days

Look backward at the days that went before,

A pensive company, the asters, stand,

Their blue eyes brightening the pasture land.

When winter lifts

A sounding trumpet to his strenuous lips,

And shapes the drifts

To curves of transient loveliness, he slips

Upon the pasture’s ineffectual brown

A swan-soft vestment delicate as down.