Approach of Summer

When winter scourges earth with vicious flail

And nature cowers cringing ‘neath his lash;

When life is taken in the strangler’s grip

And beaten nigh to death with stinging hail;

When naked trees grotesque in lightning flash

Seem to presage last rights and funeral dip;

This is the time when human spirits quail,

Blood thinning and cheek paling. Yet a flash

Of snowdrop white can make the heart-beats skip,

And pink-tipp’d buds can end the winter’s tale.

Forward we look, though eyes be blurred with sleet

And see the flowers of spring already blown.

High summer in our hearts assumes its throne,

All days wing by that happy time to greet  !

 

Weekly Times     23.2.62