The green paths down the hill-sides
Are channels for streams;
The young wheat is streaked
By silver lines of water
Running between the ridges;
The sheep are gathered together on the slopes.

After the wet dark days
The country seems more populous.
It peoples itself in the sunbeams.
The garden, mimic of Spring,
Is gay with flowers.
The purple-starred hepatica
Spreads itself in the sun,
And the clustering snow-drops
Put forth their white heads,
At first, upright, ribbed with green,
And like a rosebud when completely opened,
Hanging their heads downwards,
But slowly lengthening their slender stems.

The slanting woods of an unvarying brown,
Showing the light
Through the thin net-work of their upper boughs.
Upon the highest ridge of that round hill
Covered with planted oaks
The shafts of the trees show in the light
Like the columns of a ruin.