THE CROWS: A CHILD POEM

The Database of Ornament

                                    What a famous noise there was
                                       In the morning when I rose !
                                    All the air was hoarse with ‘Caws,’
                                       And the sky was black with crows.

                                    Hundreds circling round the trees
                                       Swooped down on a last year’s nest,
                                    Rose and scattered then like bees,
                                       Swarmed again and could not rest ;

                                    Cawing, cawing all the time,
                                       Till it grew to one great voice,
                                    And you could not hear the chime
                                       Of the school-clock for the noise.

                                    Every garden-bush has heard
                                       Through its tiny twigs and shoots,
                                    And the trees have all been stirred
                                       Right down to their very roots.

                                    Buds of green on branch and stem
                                       Glisten in the morning sun,
                                    For the Crows have wakened them,
                                       And they open one by one.

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THE CROWS

                                    Last night on the hillside lay
                                       One white patch from Winter’s snows ;
                                    Now it ‘s melted clean away
                                       With the cawing of the Crows.

                                    And a primrose, too, has heard,
                                       Peeping out to nod and talk
                                    From the hedge-roots to a bird
                                       Hopping down the garden walk.

                                    What a famous noise it was
                                       To make the very bushes hear,
                                    And birds and flowers and things — because
                                       The merry time of Spring is near !

                                                                                                GABRIEL SETOUN.

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