The Poetry Corner

The March Nosegay

By John Clare

The bonny March morning is beaming In mingled crimson and grey, White clouds are streaking and creaming The sky till the noon of the day; The fir deal looks darker and greener, And grass hills below look the same; The air all about is serener, The birds less familiar and tame. Here's two or three flowers for my fair one, Wood primroses and celandine too; I oft look about for a rare one To put in a posy for you. The birds look so clean and so neat, Though there's scarcely a leaf on the grove; The sun shines about me so sweet, I cannot help thinking of love. So where the blue violets are peeping, By the warm sunny sides of the woods, And the primrose, 'neath early morn weeping, Amid a large cluster of buds, (The morning it was such a rare one, So dewy, so sunny, and fair,) I sought the wild flowers for my fair one, To wreath in her glossy black hair.