The Poetry Corner

A Copse In Winter.

By John Clare

Shades though you're leafless, save the bramble-spear Whose weather-beaten leaves, of purple stain, In hardy stubbornness cling all the year To their old thorns, till Spring buds new again; Shades, still I love you better than the plain, For here I find the earliest flowers that blow, While on the bare blea bank do yet remain Old winter's traces, little heaps of snow. Beneath your ashen roots, primroses grow From dead grass tufts and matted moss, once more; Sweet beds of violets dare again be seen In their deep purple pride; and, gay display'd, The crow-flowers, creeping from the naked green, Add early beauties to your sheltering shade.